The anti-independence media, including certain commentators who claim to support independence and describe themselves as “critical friends of the SNP” but spend all their time and energy attacking the Scottish Government and resolutely refusing to make any positive arguments for independence, have recently taken to crowing that it’s all over for the largest party of independence and for Scottish independence itself. The Scottish media has always been overly preoccupied with finding negative stories about the SNP and the Scottish government, even as it turns a blind eye to the many many failings of the Conservative government at Westminster.
There is something deeply wrong with a media which is so desperate to fend off Scottish independence but which refuses to scrutinise or criticise the alternative, the deeply chaotic, dysfunctional and corrupt Westminster system, a system which is rapidly descending into an undemocratic authoritarianism which neither of the two main parties has any incentive to reform. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives respect the democratic right of the people of Scotland to determine the future of Scotland for themselves.
Equally neither responds to the fact that a clear majority of people across the UK believe Brexit to have been a mistake and want much closer ties with the European Union, including rejoining the Single Market and Customs Union and the restoration of the right of freedom of movement and settlement in the EU which was stripped from British citizens as a consequence of the Conservatives’ ideologically driven pursuit of the hardest possible Brexit – a hard Brexit which the Tories and their allies in the press denied they were seeking prior to the 2016 referendum.
Those of you who are getting to a certain age may recall that in 1988, the Conservative junior Health Minister Edwina Currie was forced to resign for getting some public health information wrong. Currie asserted during a TV interview that “most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella.” These claims led to a 60 percent decline in egg sales over the next few weeks and resulted in the destruction of around 400 million eggs and the slaughter of around 4 million hens.
Currie later clarified that she had misspoken, saying that she had meant much, not most, of the egg production and that she had been referring to the egg laying flocks and not the eggs themselves. However two weeks after giving the interview the furore was such that Currie tendered her resignation. This led to her political downfall, she never held another ministerial post, although she remained a backbench MP until 1997. I don’t wish to defend a woman who appointed Jimmy Savile as chairman of Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, where it later came to light that he molested and raped vulnerable patients. However it is worth pointing out that no one was killed, injured or became ill as a result of Currie’s misleading interpretation of scientific public health advice about salmonella in egg laying flocks.
Compare and contrast with what happened when then Chancellor Rishi Sunak deliberately ignored the government’s scientific advisors during the covid pandemic. Without bothering to inform the government’s scientific advisors or the chief medical officer whom he would surely have known would have told him his plan would spread the virus and lead to illness and death which could otherwise have been avoided, Sunak launched his reckless “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme, which was widely seen at the time as being part of the intensely ambitious Chancellor’s bid for the leadership of the Tory party.
The scheme predictably led to a rise in the infection rate of covid infections. A study carried out by Thiemo Fetzer, an economist at the University of Warwick, found that the scheme was closely linked to an increase in covid cases over the summer of 2020.
Fetzer concluded: “The empirical estimates suggest that the scheme may be responsible for around 8-17% of all new detected Covid-19 clusters (at least two new infections in the same area) emerging during August and into early September [2020] in the UK.” At a time when there were no effective vaccines against the virus and when doctors were still struggling to develop effective treatments for the disease, it is unquestionable that hundreds if not thousands of people who might otherwise still be alive fell ill and died as a direct result of the vanity and selfishness of Rishi Sunak, who put his career ambitions before the health, safety, and lives of members of the public.
Yet far from being forced to resign in disgrace, Sunak ended up as Prime Minister. That is how low the Westminster system has sunk, not even being responsible for the deaths of thousands is sufficient reason to cause a British politician to suffer any negative consequences.
Despite the protection offered to it by the anti-independence Scottish media, the people of Scotland see the dire state of the institutions of the British state all too clearly. From a money grabbing monarch who seizes the estates of those who die without a will and who is now mired in accusations of racism, to a dysfunctional Westminster Parliament which is unable to hold the government to account and is seemingly stuffed full of sex pests, to public services on the verge of collapse, to a BBC which acts as an enabler and apologist for the worst excesses of Anglo-British triumphalist nationalism, the second unelected Conservative Prime Minister in a row, one killed the economy and the other killed people by encouraging the spread of covid, both out of their depth in the mouldy damp patch which passes for Westminster politics, which ever way you look the institutions of the British state are not fit for purpose. This is what happens when you put a bunch of feral, arrogant, narcissistic, public schoolboys in charge.
Meanwhile their successor is going to be Keir Starmer, which is like wanting to book a holiday in a five star hotel in the Maldives and being told you’ll have to make do with a leaky caravan in Grimsby with a bucket for a toilet. A former human rights lawyer who is totally incapable of recognising blatant war crimes, even when they are announced by their perpetrator, is pretty telling. And then him having to lie about what he said a couple of days later. It doesn’t bode well, does it.
At best a Labour government will tinker around the edges of the worst Tory excesses. Then after a few years an even worse Tory party than the current incarnation will be back in power and the entire dismal cycle will ratchet us down even further.
So it’s scarcely surprising that even the woeful Scottish media can’t prevent Scots from backing independence. An opinion poll commissioned by STV and carried out by IPSOS-Mori has found that a clear majority of people in Scotland support Scottish independence, with 54% backing independence and 46% opposed.
The poll also found that the SNP continues to enjoy a healthy lead of 10% over Labour in Westminster voting intention with the SNP on 40% and Labour on 30%. The Tories are languishing on a sorry 15%. These figures would ensure that the SNP would retain the largest number of Westminster votes and seats at the next general election, with of course the important proviso that the party is able to motivate its supporters to turn out and vote. Above all it was the failure of independence supporters to come out and vote for the SNP which allowed Labour to win the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by election, with the result that people there are now represented in Parliament by one of Starmer’s most loyal lackeys, a man who will not vote against any of his boss’s policies, no matter how unpalatable they might be to the people of Scotland.
Scots are still not enthused by Starmer’s Labour party with its wholesale adoption of Conservative policies and its pretence of being opposed to nationalism even as it wraps itself in the British flag and apes the Tories on opposition to immigration. That, plus Starmer’s unwillingness to countenance any meaningful change to a Westminster Parliament and system which are manifestly unfit for purpose gives the SNP an opportunity to motivate its supporters at the next general election by ensuring that independence is front and foremost in its campaign.
I wanted to give an update about what’s going on away from politics and blogging. Regular readers may recall that a few months back my mum asked – well, insisted – that I write a piece about her battle with ocular melanoma, her operation to have her left eye removed, and her gratefulness for the NHS in Scotland and its marvellous staff. Sadly I have to report that her cancer has spread, first to her liver, then to her right lung and bones. It cannot be cured and will prove fatal sooner or later – obviously we hope later. The doctors put her on a course of immunotherapy in an effort to slow down any further spread of the cancer. The good news is that it worked, the bad news is that she has had a very adverse reaction to the treatment and they have had to pause the immunotherapy. She’s currently in hospital and is not doing too well. We don’t know when she will get home, or if they will resume treatment for the cancer, as she is only likely to have the same bad reaction. They will have to get a care plan in place and find a solution to the death trap stairs in my parents’ house.
I’m sure you will appreciate that with all this going on I have other things on my mind than blogging, but I will try and get something online as and when I can.
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What awful news.
I’d just like to say as and when you feel you can with the blog. I’m sure others will feel the same and we’ll be here discussing ‘stuff’, waiting for you to have time and energy.
Look after yourself and all good wishes to your mother.
So sorry about your mum’s poor health. A difficult time for you all. Take care x
Your mum is going through quite a struggle and it can’t be easy having to stand by and watch. But your care and attention will be very cheering. Please take what ever time you need to attend to your family.
And thanks for posting your acute observations on the dire state of politics in Westminster. Staying tied to that shower of incompetent clowns is a very bleak prospect but it’s good that the Scottish people are wakening up in greater numbers. Blogs such as WGD are vital to the cause.
On a day when a well known politician passes away we expect plaudits and sadness from his friends and colleagues, and in the case of British politician Alistair Darling this has been no different, well? except in Scotland where the BBC and STV news have used this occasion to congratulate “Lord Darling of a fence post” somewhere on an abandoned island in Scotland, a title given him for his Better together campaign to destroy the hopes and dreams of 50% of the population of Scotland which gives the BBC and STV the wonderful opportunity to re launch and congratulate the man for “stabilising” not only the banks by giving them all the taxpayers money but (quote from STVs Colin Mckay) “stabilising the UK by beating Alex Salmond, and beating him well”
I’m quite sure Lord Alistair Darling’s family will have their own grief to bear and I’m quite sure we all have respect for that, but that personal grief is not ours to share or bear, our grief in Scotland is where we stand now as a result of a man that helped destroy any faith or credibility in the UK government pals act banking system and his personal union of all English political parties, their media, plus uncle Tom Cobley and all against a Scotland that desired to make decisions for itself and was shafted by a stitch up in the process
I’ve never been nor or ever likely to be a politician, but on a debate on the currency Scotland would could or should use post independence I could have won that one in my sleep against Lord Darling of the abandoned island fence post, as could many supporters of independence both then and now
Would he have beaten Nicola Sturgeon? not a hope in hades, that’s another of the reasons why Nicola Sturgeon was in no way ever going to be allowed by England’s government to lead Scotland in another referendum, legally or otherwise, England had no one to match her, they knew it then and they know it now, you can’t buy people like her so you destroy them
That’s why they had their Supreme court rule that Scotland’s parliament couldn’t and wouldn’t be allowed to rule ever, let alone be allowed to ask the population of Scotland their opinion on how they’d prefer to be governed
The day England’s government did that they became openly out of control fascists
What governments in the history of the world have ever disallowed the asking of a simple question by its own elected politicians?
That day we became Scotland the colony, because the English ordered it so
My heart goes out to you. Hope your mum is as comfortable as possible.
Thank you for the update about your Mother’s health. This is a difficult time for you and the only thing you need to concentrate on is your mother and your family. We will be fine and will keep the conversation going but you and your family will be in our thoughts and prayers.
Take care
Tell your mum that she’s out-lived Nobody’s-Darling. That should cheer her up.
Did you know that one of his ancestors was an English High Court judge, and in the 1900’s came up with the formulation in a case – which is still in use today as a precedent in English Revenue Law – to define “income tax”?
“Income tax,” proclaimed Mr. Justice Darling, “is a tax on income.”
Best thoughts and good wishes to you all as a family.
Love to your mum and you fae the Indy live team.
Hope your Mum is very comfortable….she is a brave resilient person.
Alistair Darling twigged early that being a lefty was not going to take him to Westminster. Thus his political life played out with the other end of the Labour lot.
Sorry to hear about your Mum, am sure she is in good hands and will be well looked after.
Wishing you and yer maw aw the best Paul. Tough times.
Something to cheer you and everyone up, and relating to the article.
I am absolutely correct in that even IPSOS is being affected by low response rates. 66-67% seems not too bad, but it’s poor for telephone polling which is fully random sampling and a bit harder to ignore than an email. Just ahead of may 2021, it was 81% though with ISPOS, i.e. 81% of those agreeing to be polled were people planning to vote. This correctly predicted the outcome to within a 2% error. Sampling was good; Ipsos were reaching those that planned to vote.
Here you go:
They are not reaching voters (14% that normally vote) as a lot of these are not answering. Ergo, given SNP VI correlates directly and positively with CTV, then expect CTV to rise again and SNP VI with it as election approaches, as is has done before numerous times starting from 2011.
Not also the very high levels of Yes amongst unionists, notably Labour. And that’s not vs those intending to vote Labour, but those who voted Lab in 2019 and 2021. This should terrify unionism. It is what is pushing Yes up while SNP voters are licking wounds and not answering.
I also add the IPSOS country of birth data. 46% of people not born here plan to end the union, most of whom will be English born, these making up over half our migrant population. That is hitting historic highs and is a better clue to the future than the nonsense VI numbers polls are coming up with on both sides of the border due to low response rates.
Keep the faith. A rebellion is smouldering just below the surface in Scotland.
54% Yes is, in all probably, a notable underestimate of Yes. 2020 mid-50’s numbers are likely on the low side now.
Oops, that image was the older version. I added the CTV numbers for Holyrood version given the stark nature of these in a later and intended to put that in instead. Well here it is:
UKGE CTV was not given in those 2021 polls as the focus was Holyrood, but would have been similar.
Thank SS.
Having noted Hancock’s attempts to re-write pandemic history at the Covid Inquiry, it was striking how the lack of communication with devolved governments during the pandemic was yet again being ‘blamed’ on NS ‘playing politics’, the one line the Tories appear to have agreed on and rehearsed…
And indeed HMS James Cook as now observed in action… ‘Look, a squirrel…’
Very sorry to hear about your Mum Paul,hope she is kept pain free…..very important.
Lord Darling will be remembered in Scottish politics as the man who did more to expose the fag paper that divides the British political parties,when it comes to Scottish constitutional arrangements,than anyone else has done.
The London based parties are now seen in our country as being, pretty well a single entity,driven by the need to keep Scotland under English heels for the Betterment of the London treasury.
As Bringiton says, Paul, keeping your Mum as comfortable as possible and having you all by her side is the most important thing just now. You know you have a lot of people here rooting for you all.
As to Alistair Darling, without wishing to sound too harsh at this particular time, nevertheless he and Gordon Brown, both Scots, ensured their country stayed tied to a another country that cares nothing for us if truth be told and Gordon Brown is still at it. I’ve just read an article in which he’s still praising Alistair Darling for his work in securing a No. Wasn’t Darling one of those who banged on about the oil being about to run out, so Scotland would be an even worse economic basket case then ever? They lied over and over again. Maybe they’re programmed to lie because it’s how you get on under the British system of politics in which the two major English parties haven’t the faintest idea what they’re doing. In their private lives there was never any scandal as far as I know, and I think they were fundamentally decent people, but they were tainted by London and the system they chose to be part of. They’re not the only ones!
And how do you counter Scots like that who get so much English air time to keep churning out their nonsense and no one ever gets or takes the opportunity to question it? Pathetic.
Sorry to hear about your mum.
Leave the blog for now, we can find things to discuss amongst ourselves.
What’s clear from the UK Covid enquiry is that everything was Nicola Sturgeon’s fault
You just can’t help yourself laughing at the thrashings about within the English government
Maybe they checked the viewing numbers and half of England was tuning in to Nicola’s daily briefings to get some facts instead of England’s “next slide please” while you’re eating out to bump up the Covid numbers
In Scotland we were mostly concerned with not dying of a world wide deadly pandemic, whereas the imperative in England was will Christmas still be on and the pubs open, and the deceased numbers per country show the seriousness moral fibre and character of Scotland’s then FM Nicola Sturgeon who impressed the population with her genuine concern for their health and welfare
Oor Nicola. As you said previously Dr Jim, they were never going to outdo her, so they did, quite literally, beat her with a club of Westminster lies.
OT. From the National:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23961640.scottish-space-simulator-project-get-3-8m-investment/
“Smiths Interconnect is one of several space firms in Dundee, with space software firm Bright Ascension and spacecraft computer company STAR-Dundee also based in the city.”
An under-rated City that has often been at the forefront of innovation and technology, and indeed, science..
Comical…
With BBC/UK/Politics having “Covid inquiry: Earlier lockdown could have kept schools open, says Matt Hancock” up for allegedly 1 hour ( 1st December 2023, 03:08 UTC ), https://archive.ph/ggOBn.
James ‘The suit’ Cook must have come under huge pressure to ‘make smoke’ hence birthed “Covid inquiry: Hancock found Sturgeon ‘unhelpful’ during pandemic”, 6 minutes old yet 1st December 2023, 02:48 UTC, https://archive.ph/5Qcur.
Compare and contrast, and note which preceded which, with the different frame grab from the exact same camera angle intended to portray difference…
Did James Cook lend the Pacific Quay Tardis to BBC UK or did they have their own ?
Remarkable how ‘the News where you are..” has gone from being a bad joke to blatant political propaganda at the hands of the ‘impartial’ BBC…
Okey-doke,, controversial as ever. From yesterday:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23958168.scottish-independence-alba-launch-new-back-up-referendum-plan/
“Scottish independence: Alba launch new ‘back-up’ referendum plan”
This is interesting because it follows on from KC Aidan O’Neill’s opinion to Neale Hanvey some months ago about where to go after the UKSC made a self-deterministic booboo (effed up, frankly), and O’Neill was previously of the opinion that the Scottish Parliament is empowered by the People of Scotland (and indeed, has been 6 times now).
This too is a member’s bill and therefore not bound as far as I know, by any requirement for the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain to give it the OK as far as legislative competence is concerned. Yes, I guess if passed it could face challenges then.
I hope the SNP and Greens can find it in themselves to at least consider the Bill and perhaps give it their support.
I say “perhaps” because not having thought about it in depth, I am actually neutral as to whether it’s a good thing or not.
So that’s that then.
And one more for luck, “Bung Ho” as almost appropriate for Hancock having his half hour in that era and ilk. From the National:
“Nicola Sturgeon hits back at Matt Hancock’s Covid Inquiry ‘spin’ jibe””
This is utter ignorance by Hancock. I know many NO voters who thought Sturgeon did a great job during Covid; they were glad to see her on the TV every day and felt reassured. They thought her far better than the rUK equivalent.
So as far as I’m concerned, the more Covid stupidity by dead from the neck up Tories and media, including “Whatsapp Doc” from the usual carrots, the better. As it reminds people how better it was in Scotland than the unlucky in England. Bugs Bunny Rules OK.
Another clueless minister:
‘Scotland’ = ‘the UK’ like England does.
That’s absolutely nuts.
Well, Alison Rowat in the Herald thinks The Firm (with Aamer Anwar) is rubbish, which is about as good an endorsement as anyone could give. So I’ll binge watch it on catch-up or whatever.
This caught my eye in the article:
“there was a scene with two young women trainees being fitted for their solicitors’ gowns”
Sexism, misogyny and discrimination is rife in law circles, sadly.
Mmm, having watched episode 1 which confirms my low opinion of Rowat, just doing some googling on some of those in it gives this:
Indeed.
If you look up Sec Of State for Health the answer shows and reads Victoria Atkins Sec of State for Health and social care United Kingdom/officeholder
Anther reply to the question comes up with the British sec of State Rt Hon Steve Barclay
It also references former Health sec of the UK Matt Hancock
I think it appears more a case of the English governments own propaganda convincing English Scottish Welsh and Irish people that they’re UK and British people and everybody everywhere else is, to use Theresa May language, citizens of nowhere
They don’t understand how their own propaganda has confused and brainwashed them into only understanding that England is the UK or Britain, so Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland only exists in the minds of the nowhere people
I would never use “this country” to mean the UK. He obviously doesn’t realise that the UK is made up of three countries: Scotland, Wales and England.
Wales, unfortunately, was colonised long before the United Kingdom was formed. Ireland got away though there is still a remnant waiting to break free.
Anyone remember Robert Peffers and his history lessons?
An issue almost all in the UK were acutely aware of, yet Hancock was oblivious to ?
There has been a lot of chatter on English forums over Hancock’s evidence, all of it tearing him to pieces – Anger over the Tory retrospective ‘FM-blame-game’ has been even more vocal, many having found the clarity of the SG Covid Update preferable to the Johnson circus in London.
That’s why I posted the two articles upthread from the BBC, with James Cook pushing the “Covid inquiry: Hancock found Sturgeon ‘unhelpful’ during pandemic” version, a singular aspect of evidence stripped of context.
I don’t see it persuading anyone north or south of the border let alone at the Inquiry, but you have to question why BBC Scotland would be pushing this line with Scots….
why BBC Scotland would be pushing this line with Scots….Desperation?
It’s amazing how disinterested BBC Scotland has been with the UK Covid inquiry until there is a negative SNP headline to promote. Then there it is on their front web page. I don’t know what was broadcast as I no longer watch BBC Scotland New or STV News. They both seem about the same, English propaganda, one with adverts another with an extortion racket to fund their anti-Scottish output.
If being ‘unhelpful’ means trying to tell the truth and follow the science as best the SG government could then I suppose it was unhelpful with their lies. Who would you trust Nicol Sturgeon or Johnson, Hancock and I believe Gove did some of their briefing.
Scotland as Scotland = UK…feech
It seems there’s such a lack of talent within the Tory Party that another Lord has been created to go straight into a gov post, to join other unelected Lords Cameron and Offord, any others?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/01/scottish-landowner-who-obstructs-public-access-made-environment-minister
Burns said it best:
Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that,
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
His ribband, star, an’ a’ that,
The man o’ independent mind,
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.
I’m learning some wonderful new words – birkie (is that pronounced Burr-ky or Beer-ky?) and coof. Especially coof!
Burns, as relevant as ever…
Birr-ky is how I pronounce it. It means a man who “thinks he’s Archie”, a bit too full of himself.
A coof, on the other hand is a dunderheid, a dolt. 🙂
Monty Python also satirised the type in the “Upper Class Twit of the Year” sketch.
Okay here’s another for you CUIF
9/10ths of the time a male, who is the coof that the whole village sharpens it’s wits on.
Paul, good wishes to you, with love to your mum
Edwina Currie…yup, I remember the hype and scaremongering. Also, ‘get on your bike to get a job’. Was that not her too?
No, wasn’t it the Chingford Skinhead (Tebbit) who did the ‘bike’ thing?
It was
Ah yes, those were the days folk could afford to buy a bike
BBC Scotland’s ‘Scottish politics’ page is covered in multiple obituaries of politicians that were not Scottish but British.
If you are an MP for a British party in the British parliament, you are a British politician. To be a Scottish politician, you need to stand for a Scottish elected position, such as a councillor or MSP. That or at least you stand as an MP for Scottish political party which advocates Scottish independence / home rule in it’s British parliament manifesto.
Obituaries for British politicians should go on the UK politics page. MSPs etc on the Scottish politics pages. Darling managed England’s NHS, education etc purse strings, not ours. He led the British cross-party 2014 referendum campaign, not a Scottish one.
I don’t recall Darling ever making any Scottish laws or ever doing anything for Scotland. But then that’s not the purpose of the British parliament; it remit is to make laws for the whole UK in reserved matters and for England when it comes to everything else. Darling was far more an English politician than he was Scottish. After all, he e.g. managed England’s budget while Holyrood managed most of Scotland’s domestic spending. While he was busy governing England, we had Scottish politicians looking after much of the governance of Scotland.
I would say that the BBC was invoking it’s classic ‘blood and soil’ view of nationality by seeming to imply Darling was ‘Scottish’ somehow, except he was from England, so we must dispense with the soil aspect as least. So maybe the Tory grandparent from Scotland.. It is possible he saw himself as Scottish, but clearly he preferred English / British politics to that of Scotland. Politically, just another Michael Gove, but with more regular residence in Scotland.
The BBC should certainly take care in suggesting people are Scottish. The case of Deena Tissera is a warning to us all here. Some British people who live in Scotland will freak if you in any way suggest they are Scottish, even just in a friendly, welcoming way as Kairin van Sweeden did.
Funny and true story, when my wife and I returned from living in Spain for years my wife’s aunty was greatly surprised that she didn’t have a Spanish accent and fully expected my wife to sound like a cartoon of Speedy Gonzales
We tried to explain how accents work, but try as we might she couldn’t grasp the understanding that when we spoke Spanish we spoke it with our own Scottish accent (not deliberately) and when Spanish folk speak English they have the accent of their own language
The moral of the story? there are just some folk that no matter how much you explain a thing to them it keeps getting harder for them to understand
I see that the current right-wing nut job Israeli government, having told Gazans to flee to southern Gaza ‘for safety’, is now bombing the hell out of civilians in southern Gaza.
I knew their goal was not to protect Palestinian civilians, but to concentrate them so they could be killed more easily / at lower financial cost (two birds with one… sorry two kids with one bomb is cheaper).
We are watching ethno-nationalistic genocide / cleansing. No doubt about it. There is a section of all societies capable of such violence if they get power. These rose to power in German and have done so in Israel too. The West Bank is Israel’s lebensraum to it’s right wing extremists.
England refused to try and stop Germany back then, just as it is refusing to stop Israel now. This is because it was an ethno-nationalist imperial state back then, and it’s an isolationist, ethno-nationalist parochial one now. It only reluctantly entered WW2 as it feared for loss of parts of its own empire to the third Reich, was nothing to do with trying to stop the holocaust or other moralistic reasons. Hitler would have loved to have bludgeoned as many countries into German rule as England had managed to violently conquer and subjugate beneath the butcher’s apron.
The absolute f’n state ae this.
https://archive.is/dofB2
Conflict of interest hangs over England’s showdown with Scotland
Despite the old rivalry, a Lionesses win could give players from both sides a chance of representing Team GB at the Olympics.
England travel to Glasgow on Tuesday with the strangest of propositions, needing a win against a team who will do anything to beat them but some of whose players stand to benefit from England’s progression from their Nations League group.
Scotland’s predicament is not a predicament, in that none of their players would contemplate defeat to England in any circumstances. But that Scotland players could be included in a Team GB squad at next summer’s Paris Olympics, were England to earn a qualifying spot, creates an interesting conflict of interests.
The solution is simple. Scotland competes as Scotland at the Olympics, via independence for example.
Otherwise, England thinks the Scots team should not be horrible, nasty, anti-English Scots, but let them win so England can qualify for the games. As thanks, maybe they might let some Scots play for their team, but no promises!
The Scottish women’s footballing authorities should never have agreed to a women’s British team and neither should the Scottish players, the minute they agreed to this is the minute I stopped watching them, and not just for nationalist reasons, but for all the glaringly obvious treacherous behaviour of the English footballing authorities that’ll turn it into an Englandfest of ridiculousness British Lionesses advertising campaign then only use the Scots players if it’s vital to an England win
But I guess some people are quite happy to sell their nationality for cash, we live in a country that already did that, we could call it “sold their goals for English gold”
I can hear the vomit inducing England commentators now
Hi Paul, So sorry to hear about your mum, Keeping you all in my thoughts and prayers. Pam Mitchell
So I hear Alba are going to stand lots of candidates in the general election in the hope of helping out the Labour party
Still it’ll be a change for Salmond to get some people to stand for election to his own party instead of pretending to stand for the SNP then stealing their votes
Let’s see if Salmond has the guts to stand himself, maybe in Nicola Sturgeons constituency, I reckon he’ll get a sense of just how popular he actually is
You know what though, I bet Salmond doesn’t stand because when he loses bang goes his promised seat in the house of Lords if he doesn’t deliver sufficient split vote numbers against the SNP to boost the Labour party
There are words for what Salmond is, they used some of them in court, the rest we all know
‘So I hear Alba are going to stand lots of candidates in the general election in the hope of helping out the Labour party’.
This Labour Party?
Telegraph headline today: ‘Starmer heaps praise on Thatcher as he woos Conservative voters’.
Caption: ‘Sir Keir Starmer used his article to pitch himself as the heir to Thatcher, Clement Attlee and Sir Tony Blair’.
Opening sentence: ‘Sir Keir Starmer heaped praise on Margaret Thatcher for effecting “meaningful change” in Britain as he launched an explicit appeal to Conservative voters to switch to Labour…’
Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/02/starmer-praises-thatcher-woos-conservative-voters/
We know when a majority of voters in Scotland last supported Tory values, Tory policies. It’s a long, long time ago! Are ‘traditional Labour voters’ in Scotland now so wedded to this Union, regardless – a Union shaped by over a decade of Tory governments and by Brexit – that they will vote for a Starmer-led Labour Party which has shifted rightwards in order to be attractive to ‘traditional Tory voters’ specifically in England?
As a consequence, Labour is complicit with the Tories in shifting the Overton Window – the range of ideas the public is willing to consider and accept – ever rightwards.
Will the majority of Labour voters in Scotland even learn from the news media here what Starmer with his Labour Party’s Tory-attracting policy positions is up to? SNP-bad trumps all?
The ‘Caption: ‘Sir Keir Starmer used his article to pitch himself as the heir to Thatcher, Clement Attlee and Sir Tony Blair’. ‘ reminded me of an LSE talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGRvpppzA8E&t I’d watched earlier (poor audio in places), where Professor Gwyn Bevan cast all 3 in an entirely different light from his book, ‘How Did Britain Come to This?’ .
As depressing as the analysis was from all 3 on the panel, including an unsurprisingly distorted view on what has actually transpired in Scotland, the ‘more devolution’ proposition struck me as odd given England’s purported shunning of it, and the determination of London throughout history to prevent sharing of power.
One of the panel, Ass Prof Abby Innes went on to discuss her own book “Late Soviet Britain: Why Materialist Utopias Fail” recently in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_H_1Akaip0, a harder one for me to take in, but equally depressing.
Escape from the UK’s death spiral appears for now only available to Scots.
Breaking free from a media which seeks only to misinform will prove by far the greater challenge…
You know what though, I bet Salmond doesn’t stand because when he loses bang goes his promised seat in the house of Lords if he doesn’t deliver sufficient split vote numbers against the SNP to boost the Labour party
Not sure how much a completely invented (and IMO highly implausible) claim like this contributes to the blog’s stated goal of promoting Scottish independence.
‘So I hear Alba are going to stand lots of candidates in the general election in the hope of helping out the Labour party’.
That can’t be true surely.
The Labour party is undoubtably “the party of change”. Keir Starmer has changed it from a left of centre party that believed in equality, workers rights and standing up for those less able to stand up for themselves.
The transformation is complete as today Starmer’s article in the Telegraph praises all thing Tory and describes how he wants to get back to the great days of Thatcher and Blair.
Starmer is making it perfectly clear that disaffected Tory voters can happily vote for Labour in the knowledge that he will continue with Tory policies that will protect their wealth while being tough on welfare, tough on striking workers, tough on immigration, tough on absolutely everything that “old” Labour once stood for.
We are witnessing the birth of the UK one party state, all hail our Imperial Masters!
https://archive.ph/dyz6e
Curtice makes a stab at explaining the contradictory polling right now.
https://archive.is/J922Z
John Curtice gives verdict on Scottish General Election polls
My comment from the National:
Curtice is making the mistake of assuming that samples are representative right now. They are not. It’s not possible to have such low certain to vote (CTV) numbers unless you are missing a large number of people who always vote. Polls have been missing these in the form of SNP voters since England cancelled democracy then put Sturgeon on trial by media, forcing her from office. This didn’t make people go off the SNP/indy, but made them determined to support both. However, it was a blow morally, so they stopped answering polls as they licked their wounds. A reverse honeymoon effect. Both mirages though.
These are example CTV numbers from IPSOS:
66% Nov 2023
81% May 2021
74% Feb 2021
66% CTV is way too low for IPSOS. Ideally, your sample would comprise of everyone who was planning to vote in an election, i.e. 100% of the sample was CTV. Then you’d be absolutely spot on with your prediction. People who are not sure they will vote or won’t vote are useless at helping you predict outcomes for obvious reasons. The more you are missing certain to vote voters, the more your error goes up and you have weird patterns like we have now.
The 81% CTV was just ahead of May 2021, and IPSOS was spot on within 2% for SNP share. 66% is way too low. The poll cannot be correct here. That’s a massive chunk of certain to vote voters missing from your sample.
Curtice gives a clue but doesn’t realise it. The reason that polls are showing wild swings in SNP 2019 to Labour, is because the sampling is wrong. It’s because if you take out variable numbers of SNP2019 & still SNP, then your SNP2019 to Lab numbers go up when you renormalise, but variance will increase, so values will swing around wildly. which is what’s happening.
In England, the same thing is occurring. Tories are not answering polls, artificially inflating Labour’s share. The mini budget had them go quiet.
IPSOS is more realistic over panel polling (Redfield and Winton) as it uses telephone, so has better reach right now. People are less likely to ignore the phone ringing than they are an email from Redfield and Winton. It’s still suffering from low response rates though.
Mid term polling is generally a lot of guff, and this is one of the main reasons for it; sampling being poor outside of election times. Big swings ahead of elections are generally not real, but simply response rates increasing, so the correct picture becomes revealed.
Labour will be lucky if they get 25% on Scotland. No unionist party has manage over 29% in nearly 14 years. When you split 50% or less three ways, that’s what happens.
The reason Yes is going up while the SNP seem to be down, is that Yes is increasing in traditional unionist party voters. This means that even though polls are missing SNP voters, Yes still goes up. When SNP voters start responding again, we’ll be well into the mid 50’s or more like IPSOS is picking up on.
But we’ll probably need an election date announcement before CTV numbers start to rise and polls begin to show what the real outcome will be. It’s all very much like 2011, where in January, Labour were apparently on 45% and the SNP on just 33%. That was a mirage. It was the other way around, but sampling was not representative. The sudden swing to the SNP wasn’t a swing, but just response rates increasing as the election drew close.
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”Make Britain Grate again !”
I think that is Starmer’s aim … and he is succeeding in Scotland !
I think it’s more MEGA: Make England Great Again. Starmer is an English nationalist, hence him not liking the idea of any further devo while being opposed to iref2. Thatcher was an English nationalist too.
That was a bit cheesy …
Sorry – comment meant for millsjames1949 … not S_S.
So Starmer thinks that Thatcher’s effect on the UK by declaring war on the old traditional industries and destroying countless communities in the most cold-hearted and unsympathetic way imaginable was ….. to encourage ”our natural entreprenurialism ” ?
Well , let’s see if those voters from once thriving mining communities , Steel towns , shipbuilding areas etc… agree with with this political chameleon .
A man who stood four-square with Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 General Election has undergone a Damascene conversion of epic proportions .
This is almost comparable to the John Reid conversion from Communism to a cosy seat in the House of Lords , or the Red Clydesider Manny Shinwell who helped nationalise the Mines in 1946 then accepted a peerage and eventually voted against the Labour Party for being ”too left wing !”
There must be something in the water at some Labour Party constituency meetings which corrodes the principles of ( supposed ) committed socialists .
Doesn’t entrepreneurialism involved standing on your own two feet and not sponging resources from your neighbours?
Unless England starts paying it’s way in the world rather than helping itself to the taxes of it’s neighbours, it can’t be described as entrepreneurial. That suggests hard working and inventive. Locking your partner in the basement while you go through their purse to fund your e.g. coke habit is neither of these.
Labour were every bit as culpable as Mrs Thatcher in the demise of Scottish industry probably more so since Labour were in power in 1960s and 1970s but did little if anything to stop the decline.
For example, when the coal mines were nationalised in 1947 there were 225 mines across Central Scotland. By 1979 when Mrs T came to power there were just 20 left
https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/coal-mining-in-the-british-isles/scotland/
The same with shipbuilding in Scotland. When the Labour Gov nationalised shipbuilding in the 1970s there were only 6 shipyards in Scotland – 4 on the Clyde and 1 each in Dundee and Aberdeen.
Labour has been promoting the ‘all Mrs T’s fault’ for decades trying to hide their own culpability.
Thatcher shut down Scotland’s industries, took all it’s oil money and gave this to the English, telling them they were wealthy from their own hard work. At the same time, she pointed to all the Scots she’d made unemployed, telling the English these were ‘lazy subsidy junkies that should get on their bikes’.
The very word “devolution” is an insult to Scotland and every Scot
“D Evolution” The dictionary defines it as the transfer of power to a “LOWER level”
There are many words that could have been used to describe a transfer of power to ANOTHER level, department, structure, administration, but “someone” came up with a word that describes something David Attenborough would study on the Galapagos islands
“Maybe one day even after years of semi isolation the Scottish brain with exposure to higher life forms will catch up and “evolve” sufficiently to catch up with English brain”, did you hear that and picture David Attenborough saying those words as he leans over Scotland pointing this out to camera, of course he would never actually do such a thing but you get it all the same, right?
“D Evolution” Yeah right!
Does anyone know how long ago Keir Starmer joined the SNP as agent S008, with a licence to shill?
Excellent article about Yousaf’s clever bond move.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23964020.claims-scottish-government-bonds-plan-will-not-success-nonsense/
“If they were to come out with a 30-year bond, not repaid until a similar time to Aberdeen and investors were not getting any protection against independence, that would be a pretty positive view.”
Indeed. And I’d say that nevertheless, it would be very successful, as in this comment btl: “Make them available and I’ll buy.“.
I am enjoying Anas Sarwar hiding away until he gets instructions about what to say this week
How do you say “Naw ma boss didnae mean he liked Thatcher” without sounding like an absolute di*k
I’m sure it’ll be fun listening to him try
Former Labour MSP Neil Findlay.
I was lucky enough to live in North Berwick in the late 80’s / early 90’s. If you wanted to find one place in Scotland where you might not immediately notice the complete ruination of Scotland’s economy, it was there.
Yet look a little closer and the hotels that used to house the coal miners / shipyard workers on their summer breaks were mostly closed or housing DSS. The beautiful old railway station was knocked down and replaced by a small plastic shelter we called ‘the egg box’ as a nice station was ‘unaffordable’.
And this was while billions was flowing to England’s coffers from Scotland’s north sea oil.
That brings back memories pre 1980/90’s. I lived in a suburb of Edinburgh in those days which had its own rail connection to the Waverly Station and a direct rail link to North Berwick to boot so no change of train required. Great for a Sunday or summer holiday outing. Following Beeching and then the final axe from Labour’s Barbara Castle, our suburban line was closed down. Imagine a city like Edinburgh having its suburban lines closed by the stroke of an English politician’s pen.
Ironically at that time, Edinburgh City Council seems to have been in the control of a group known as the Progressives, basically anti-Labour, with tacit agreements with the Liberals, the Unionists (centre right) and independents. It was all about keeping Labour out of local politics and was common in Scottish local councils apparently. There was virtually no SNP of significance then, of course,
3 days on and BBC Scotland politics still has 3 headline obituary stories about a British politician who held high office in the British / English government as if he was somehow a ‘Scottish’ politician.
No story about about the leader of the Labour party in Scotland praising thatcher’s legacy.
I don’t suppose we should be surprised by Starmer’s play for the Thatcher mantle but it must be a hard pill to swallow for some in Scottish Labour…no Mr Murray, I don’t mean you.
“…no Mr Murray, I don’t mean you.”
========
Nice one.
The member for Red Morningside will hate that.
Good.
Thatcher over 3million unemployed. 20% in NI. 15% in Scotland. The only place unemployment was under 10% was London S/E.
Interest rates at 17% and inflation 15%. Social unrest and violent protest. The Poll tax.
Why is Labour chasing Tory votes if it’s apparently 20 points ahead?
It’s because it’s not 20 points ahead, but most likely facing a struggle to even win a majority, as the English council and recent by-elections told us.
If Labour was really 20 points ahead on the policy platform Starmer stood on, there would be no need for Starmer to roll it all back. But he knows the lead is a polling mirage, and it’s much closer than it seems. He desperately wants the riches that some time in No. 10 will bring him just as Blair did. And so he moves ever rightwards, seeking the support of racist right wing English Brexiters.
Starmer has a lot of Tory money funding polling for him. He knows what I am working out based on what I can find in the public domain.
Starmer is either a liar or completely ignorant about recent history.
Those of us who were around during the Thatcher years,following the Winter of Discontent,knew full well what she was about and it had nothing whatsoever to do with unleashing entrepreneurship.
The Tories decided that the unions had to be broken and the way to do it was to cut off their income.
So,they shut down all the industries that employed union members and shifted the economy to a financial services model based in London and the SE of England.
They then used North Sea oil to fund the resulting unemployment….a price worth paying in their view.
Generations of unemployed in some communities.
It is completely outrageous that a leader of the Labour party should be lauding that creature and shows how far they have now drifted from it’s founding principles.
Scots have long memories and this will not be forgiven.
Spot on – shows how adrift the labour Party now are. I see Margaret Hodge was boasting about how she worked to stop a Labour victory under Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone voting Labour gets Tory,
Thatcher had a net worth of at least £10 million on the back of her No. 10 stint. Blair is estimated to have ~£50 million by comparison. That’s what Starmer has in his sights.
What James Cook’s unnamed author could have written about Matt Hancock’s evidence at the Covid Inquiry https://archive.ph/EFcfQ were he impartial….
Chris Mason’s “Covid Inquiry felt like the trial of Matt Hancock” has been up on BBC/UK/Politics since 2nd December 2023, 01:23 UTC
James Cook’s “Covid inquiry: Hancock found Sturgeon ‘unhelpful’ during pandemic” has been up on BBC/Scotland/Politics since 1st December 2023, 02:48 UTC
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Has Starmer condemned this yet and called for a ceasefire, or is he too busy praising Thatcher in the Daily Torygraph?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67605703
Israel says military expanding operations across Gaza
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) says its ground offensive in Gaza is expanding “against Hamas centres in all of the Gaza Strip”, according to its chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari…
..A spokesperson for the UN’s children’s agency Unicef said he was “running out of ways to describe the horrors hitting children” in Gaza as the conflict continues.
“This is the worst bombardment of the war right now in south Gaza,” James Elder said.
“When I see child after child wheeled in, parents screaming on stretchers with horrendous wounds of war one after the other, hour after the other – they’re not safe in hospitals, they’re not safe in shelters,” he added.
“There is no way I feel safe, no-one else feels safe.”
Must all be ‘Hamas kindergarten brigades’ or something right?
For some reason the Mirror’s sister paper in Scotland, the Daily Record, isn’t running with the same story. Maybe because it’s right-wing while the Mirror is left?
In England, the left still has a voice in the media. In Scotland, the British media actually protects the right.
Too concerned about getting their very own former paperboy Torcuil Crichton elected as a Labour candidate for the Western Isles to sully the Labour reputation with facts !
The England politician’s question: How do we win?
The England politician’s answer to themselves: Any way we can
Their lands in the south often appear different from their lands in the north, it’s the winning in the end that counts, then all they previously said becomes meaningless for the next five years until it’s time to say other things that will become meaningless to win any way they can
‘Tis because ‘the lands to the north’ (and ‘the lands to the west’) are meaningless to them, too.
Never was it more appropriate in our case of course to be referred to by our eastern neighbour’s cartographers: “Here be (red) dragons”.
Robbie Mochrie sets out the argument for Scotland having its own currency very soon after independence using the Faroe Isles as an example.
The bank of the Faroe Islands can help guide Scotland
https://archive.is/NNIDm
keeping track of renewable energy projects i Scotland.
Scotland’s renewable energy projects revealed in new map
https://archive.is/y8Vxs
I take your positive point, but were there not so many blocks deliberately put in place by London to slow Scotland’s progress, those numbers would have been attained years ago…
eg – I was listening to the “Challenges of a 100% Renewable Island With Jonathan Porterfield” episode of the ‘The Fully Charged Podcast’ this morning, where Jonathan gave examples good and bad on what was happening on Orkney, but the it was the ‘bad’ which really stood out most.
The ‘fatter’ mainland interconnect Orcadians have been demanding for decades, ‘may’ actually be installed before 2030 – It appears complicated to do 30 miles of undersea cable what with HMG controlling Ofgem controlling everything, yet gazumping the Peterhead/Norway interlink in favour of Blyth to feed England’s relentless appetite happened almost overnight, and the cable laid inside a year…
Indeed nowhere on a UK map does a single completed interlink to the continent exist, because London ensured they were the gate-keepers promising jam tomorrow. It’s much as nuclear generated power was so cheap it wasn’t worth billing for in the 1960s, look how that worked out, and disabled-seaman Bowie still championing nuclear as if he has a scoobie of understanding – The reason is clear enough, money, mafia loves money….
Likewise the utterly bizarre scenario of Orcadians being all in favour of dispersed battery storage to maximise usage of wind generators rather than turning them off, an offshoot of the distributed power storage model which could transform energy storage frankly everywhere…
Yet their hopes were dashed by owners of the Smart meters blocking it because of a disputatious clause in THEIR contracts.
London’s mafia has much to answer for….
I am no expert on energy matters. I posted this as a means of us keeping some sort of grasp of what is happening at the moment. Once a campaign gets underway there will be a tsunami of flak about how poor we are and how we will be unable to keep the lights on if we break from Westminster.
I do hope somebody in the SG is keeping tabs on it and this map may be an indication that somebody is. 🤞
Similar to the responses to his foot-in-mouth comments endorsing Israel’s siege of Gaza , then his cackhanded attempt to renege on what he said , Starmer’s apologists are out in force trying to rein-in his comments praising Thatcher’s ”achievements”.
(Not forgetting that his ”Pledges” to the Labour Party voters during the leadership election lasted less time than a Liz Truss Premiership .)
No , he didn’t actually say what he said – his apologists say – but if he did , he meant something different !
This man was meant to be a lawyer with a forensic-like grasp of words . Perhaps he will be able to answer this question without having to retract his answer a heartbeat later :
”Keir , What do YOU stand for as a LABOUR politician ?
( I have a postage stamp handy to write down your reply )
Starmer now reported as saying ‘the public spending taps will not be turned on’ if Labour forms the next UK Government. That should bring joy to the ears of the folks of the leafy shires who will, naturally, not be voting Labour anyway.
What next one wonders? Time to give Anas Sarwar a ring, BBC South Pacific Quay, and see what he has to say. No ‘Happy Talk’ from him? OK. Try Ms Baillie for ‘There’s nothin’ like a Dame’ when you need answers to difficult questions
[For anyone lost in the South Pacific, have no fear:
Have an Enchanted Evening, everyone.]
The branch office of Labour in Scotland is still in hiding
Meanwhile Michael Gove is educating us all on “British” values, remembering of course that only England = Britain and the UK, the rest of us are citizens of nowhere unless we agree to the imposition of the English made up nationality
In Westminster today the Tories defend their policy of not recognising Palestine as a state, so are unable to support a two state solution to a conflict where they only recognise one state
One would have thought on a humanitarian level at least, even if the UK of England’s government say they only support Israel in its efforts to end Hamas, they could offer logistical assistance on the ground in doing so that rather than supporting the extending of civilian “collateral damage” by continuous bombing
But of course the UK of England’s government do not believe in a two state solution, so civilian “collateral damage” by their way of thinking must be a legitimate course of action on the part of Israel, so the political engineering of words will continue until the Nivea runs out
I don’t believe anyone is suggesting that Hamas shouldn’t be dealt with, but how does a regime target a death cult that hides and shields behind the innocent man woman or child? you can’t, except by individual boots on the ground, and that’s made unacceptable to Israel due to the huge loss of life to their forces that would incur at this current moment in time, and if you’re a politician like Netanyahu re election on the basis of a successful campaign with the least loss of life to Israel is vital, so the bombing will continue with the least sacrifice to Israel, and that’ll be right down to the last Palestinian man woman and child, or until the rest of the world stops it before there is no one left alive to even begin to have a conversation about the state of Palestine that never will be because the powers that be outside of Israel want it so
We’re all just so lucky to be Scottish, and we just luurve our England united one state solution
They still allow us to call ourselves Scotland, at least that’s something
At the moment
Unbelievable…
Headlines we’ll never see: And there it is folks the culture of drunkenness disrespect and denial from Liberal Democrats in Scotland
Drunkenness to which Cole Hamilton will deny, disrespect to our parliament for trying to call from the bar which he’ll deny and blame on an excess of Hay fever medication affecting his rushed glass of Vimto and crisps lunch
If this were any SNP member it would be all over every news media in England’s one state country of their fake union instantly
As if it’s not bad enough that half the press stagger around the public lobby in this state, we have to put up with this as well
Starmer actually promising a decade of austerity now, having rolled by everything moderate centre to left he promised to win the leadership.
This is going to be the straw that breaks the union’s back. War is already brewing between English/British nationalist Labour and Scottish unionist Labour.
Sarwar is watching Starmer destroy any faint hope he had of maybe, just maybe, getting in Bute House. Mind Scottish Labour elected Ricardo Leopold as leader, and he’s a Corbynite. These, like Neil Findlay, are not going to go down without a fight.
Seriously, anyone who thinks Starmer’s English nationalist new Brexit Tories are going to make inroads politically in Scotland needs their heid examined.
They won a single deckchair on the titanic here as Scots don’t want any of these anymore, so the majority of voters just let them have it.
So I find out today that the popular wee garage in our village is closing. Reason is Brexit.
Guy that runs it cannot get any staff. Been advertising for 6 months; something I saw on their Facebook page. Costs have gone through the roof with Brexit inflation too. So he’s giving up. To much work for not enough pay. Going to go back offshore again where it’s better money and less stress.
So Brexit has now closed both the local pub / restaurant and the local garage. It is decimating communities.
Thanks England. Slow f’n clap.
Warming tae Sunak, at least on this policy.
https://archive.is/2OtFB
Surely closing Pacific Quay could save a few bob?
Rishi Sunak ‘to block licence fee hike’ as BBC plans £7.5m in cuts
RISHI Sunak is reportedly set to block a 9 per cent licence fee rise as the UK Government warned the BBC it must be “realistic” about how much it can put up the price.
I absolutely support England privatising the BBC. Has my full backing. Privatise and then people can choose whether or not they want to pay for it via a sub.
Do that and BBC Scotland would be finished completely.
If someone lent Starmer half a brain it’d be lonely.
Vote Labour get Thatcher! You know it makes sense!
And by the way I do like very much the way the National describes Labour as Starmer’s Party when it comes to polls and suchlike. Very clever.
No questions for the England government Scottish media?
Once again in BBC Scotland’s reporting of all the damage that’s once again about to be inflicted upon Scotland by decisions made in the England government no questions to or phone ins are required on any of this, but questions and phone ins are requested about what the public think the Scottish government must do to mitigate the damage
This is all about respect, and the media in Scotland display the loyalty of acceptance of all decisions made in England by that government, but no respect for the Scottish government elected by the people that live here, ergo the media in Scotland have no respect for the population that elects that government
Even Beth Rigby of Sky says Starmer is a Tory.
https://archive.ph/TL5uc
All the Cameron/Osborne austerity was for nothing, we all know debt has massively increased and it had done so even before Covid. In fact debt never stopped increasing during the years of austerity.
All that actually happened was that money was transferred from the public sector into the pockets of the wealthiest people in the world and not just the UK.
While the vast majority have gotten a lot poorer since 2010, the wealth of the top 5% has increased three-fold, so now you know where all the money has gone.
Starmer looks certain to repeat the “mistakes” or might that be deliberate policy of Cameron/Osborne to double down on austerity measures once again. Nicola Sturgeon had it right back then when she was calling for increased spending amid such gloom. If Starmer want’s the economy to grow then he needs to invest money in new capital projects and put money into people’s pockets in order to stimulate the economy.
But Starmer is a Tory so don’t be expecting anything to start looking better for the ordinary punter in the UK anytime soon.
You have to speculate to accumulate, or in Glasgow language, ye hiv tae pit it doon tae pick it up
Starmer has no credibility, zilch sensible ideas and the charisma of a plank of wood. If elected he will be every bit as bad a PM as Bojo.
Meanwhile in Gaza the slaughter of civilians goes on. I will never forgive Hamas or the Israeli government for the horror they have created. It is pathetic IDF have distributed leaflets with a QR code to a map so folk can check if their house is likely to be bombed. War crimes are being committed by Israel in Gaza that is clear but no doubt America , Uk Labour and Tories will give them a free pass. I cannot help but remember what another country got away with in 1933- 1945 and the similarities with what the Israelis are doing in Gaza/The West Bank now.
Here’s the evidence.
When the populace of the UK are in such desperate need of an Attlee, they get a Thatcher/Bliar clone instead, doomed to observe the same mistakes being repeated in hope THIS time it works…..
Thatcher’s massive public hoax over public finances will continue whoever gets elected, and a further round of “painful decisions in the national interest” will assuredly follow.
This is no flawed ‘understanding’ of how the economy works, they KNOW they are peddling lies which will only further impoverish the majority to the benefit of the few.
A paper on how ‘democracy’ and the well-being of citizens was bought out will be published long after we’re all gone…
3 days later, unable to hide the story, BBC Jockland publishes this.
https://archive.is/o2NXY
Starmer praise for Thatcher an insult to Scots, says ex-Labour MSP
Sir Keir Starmer’s praise for Margaret Thatcher has been described as an “insult” to working-class Scots by a former Labour MSP.
Neil Findlay said people would be “appalled” by the comments.
In a Sunday Telegraph column, Sir Keir said Baroness Thatcher helped free the UK for a “stupor” and set loose the UK’s “natural entrepreneurialism”.
But finds a trans story to front page headline with in the hope of distracting readers.
If HY does not tear both Sarwar and Dross new erses at FMQ this week I despair.
Sarwar must be asked if he and his Motley Branch Office crew back ‘Maggie’ Starmer’s praise of The Milk Snatcher, and endorses New New Labour’s Red Tory ‘austerity’ cuts when they sweep to power in The Mother Land.
Dross should be asked if the pensioners in Moray will welcome their bank accounts being accessed by the English Government to check their accounts for fraud when the new Data protection Bill is passed by the Blue Tories next week.
I’m sure the two ‘Scottish’ Red Tory MP’s sleep o’ nights now that the slaughter of Gaza Innocents has resumed.
We are on the edge of darkness.
Any ‘Labour’ politician Up Here who does not resign from the Red Tory Party now is beneath contempt.
I saw the plan to access the bank accounts of pensioners in UK and could hardly believe MPs would vote for this.
Did Labour not abstain on this as usual? Any word from Labour that they would repeal this if they win the election?
Not sure. I’ve been out most of today so haven’t had time to look it up. Richard Murphy’s blog post is well worth reading as are the excellent btl comments.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/12/05/the-governments-desire-to-have-access-to-the-bank-accounts-of-every-benefit-claimant-including-pensioners-whilst-refusing-to-take-powers-to-tackle-tax-abuse-reveals-malicious-intent-on-their-p/
This from Max Robespierre:
thx – will watch and learn!
I’d imagine Hamas must have swollen it’s ranks enormously now.
I’d not be surprised if their fighters numbers are double or treble what they started with by now. It will emerge far stronger than it has ever been, and with much greater public support. Only prize idiot ethno-nationalistic religious freako idiots would think otherwise.
If your home / job / family / country are destroyed, what is there left to live for? If someone hands you a gun to fight back against those that did this to you without any justification, you will take it.
The Easter Rising itself failed to rise the populace to armed rebellion. It was English collective punishment of Irish civilians for it that ensured independence, and that young Irishmen would take up the gun to win this if needed. Which they did.
The US has two battle groups parked off the coast of Gaza, another battle group, the USS Eisenhower, in the Persian Gulf and a nuclear submarine heading to the Persian Gulf. One phone call would stop this genocide in minutes. But that’s not why they’re there. They’re there to attack Iran as soon as the least provocation can be engineered. Despicable. Genocide Joe and his allies in the UK are beyond the pale of human toleration.
“If your home / job / family / country are destroyed, what is there left to live for? If someone hands you a gun to fight back against those that did this to you without any justification, you will take it.”
Add in violently raped (some young girls had their pelvis broken, they were so violently raped!), by several hamas and then shot in the head, and this could apply to any Israeli
The first casualty of any war is the truth. Some of those lurid photos circulating online are known to be old photos of Kurdish soldiers. What Israel should have done is go to the UN at the start of this war and ask for independent investigators to assess their claims. Otherwise, beheaded babies and mass rapes are most likely dismissed as propaganda.
And the IDF are doing as bad or worse. They’ve killed far more innocent civilians than Hamas has, so are morally the worst of the two with way more innocent blood on their hands.
I was of course talking about innocent people who had nothing to do with Hamas, hence talking about them becoming supporters / recruits when they were not before. If my neighbour does something heinous, is it ok to blow up my home and family as punishment because we are both ‘Scottish’? Can I blame you for the actions of the English Tories simply because you live in the UK (I assume)? This is what you seem to be saying is all fine and dandy, and not a recognised genocidal war crime. To feel otherwise about Palestinians, I can only assume you are a racist when it comes to these, full of hatred for innocent people simply because they are of a different ethnicity / religion to you?
Hamas fighters numbered around 30k at the start of this event. The population of the Gaza strip is 2.1 million. That makes 98.6% of the population of Gaza not Hamas fighters, so not legitimate targets under international law. And it can’t even be claimed that a significant number of people support Hamas, as there has not been elections in Gaza for nearly 18 years. Ordinary, peaceful Gazans like the family of our own FM are victims of Hamas as much as Israelis are. You I believe have previously pointed out how badly Hamas treats ordinary Palestinians, ‘putting violence first, taking food, water, fuel and medicine for it’s militants over civilians… spending money on weapons not development’. That means you believe these people should be punished twice / by both sides for some reason; a belief that can only be driven by ethno-religious hatred.
Israel is committing war crimes including genocide. It’s current government are evil ethno-nationalist extremists which are a bigger danger to innocent people than the likes of Hamas / Islamic Jihad, because they are better armed so can kill more people. And they are absolutely doing so in a bloodthirsty ethnic cleansing rampage. It’s increasingly looking to me that it’s not Hamas they want to wipe out, but Gaza and its people, to create more Zionist lebensraum as their settlers are doing in the West Bank.
It’s why Israel got Palestinians to flee south; so they’d make a more concentrated target; one which the IDF are now pummelling.
I am with the UN, WHO etc on this. The world is going to need to deal with the current Israeli government as it had to the man with the tash from Germany. That is, if Israelis do not deal with things themselves and remove these murders from power via the ballot box.
I don’t agree with war, but there are two sides in this. I am not racist. I believe in trying to see what’s happening on both sides. I don’t dismiss something has happened (violent rape, taking hostages and treating them badly, mutilating bodies) like Capella has done above just because it has happened to Israelis. The hamas own bodycams show some of the atrocities they committed. The released hostages are now able to speak out about what happened.
I feel for the innocents on both sides. Whereas you seem to dismiss anything bad happened in Israel. If they didn’t have the iron dome, Israel would be as devastated as Gaza with the amount of missiles that go from Gaza to Israel. Luckily for Israel their government spent money on protecting the Israeli citizens unlike hamas who seem to have used their money on killing jews!
You will need to link to link to me dismissing the actions of Hamas. I have condemned their heinous attack on innocent Israelis multiple times. If you can’t provide a link to me doing this, you must be just making it up.
Israel spends orders of magnitude more on killing and associated equipment than Hamas does. All this does not come cheap:
Hamas had around 30k soldiers at the start of this conflict I understand, mostly armed with hand weapons.
Gaza has no money for buying similar to Israel, as Israel has made it an open prison. A barbed wire tipped, concrete walled ghetto with Israel guards at every entrance.
If Israel was poor, this conflict would unlikely still be raging. But Israel can afford to wall in Gazans and settle the west bank, because it’s huge military spending means the international community is very wary of trying to stop it. It might even start nuking countries. Clearly, killing civilians is not something the current government is remotely worried about.
As for what you said earlier, I can imagine Israeli victims families would want revenge too. Some may well join the defence forces as a result. The difference is that their cities are not being flattened. They don’t live within a Hamas built open air prison. They have jobs, money, food, water. So they will be less likely to take extreme action, even if they despair at their loss.
And if they do pick up arms, they should never target an innocent Palestinian in some sort of revenge, as that could only be a racist attack on a whole people rather than on the actual perpetrators; a small number of Hamas militants.
The single death of one Israeli innocent does not justify the killing of an innocent Palestinian, nor vice versa. You are coming across to me as implying the former (multiple Palestinians dead per single Israeli victim) is ok in defence of the Israel government by reminding us of what we all know, that Hamas committed horrific atrocities. What Hamas did was very, very wrong. It is therefore very, very wrong for Israeli to do the same in return.
What next, we bomb the street where the Manchester arena bomber came from ‘cos he killed loads of our children’?
I will say again that Israel is deliberately targeting innocent civilians. There is absolutely no way so many could be dying unless they were being targeted.
This is why the UN is talking about breaches of international law and war crimes. If Israel commits these, it become another third Reich. Killing a child with a gas chamber is just as bad as dropping a bomb on their head. Or as Hamas did, shooting them in the back as they ran from a festival.
I am happy to see Hamas leaders tried for the same.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-ngo-shut-down-reporting-sexual-assault-ex-us
Israel-Palestine war: Israel shut down NGO for reporting rape of teenager, ex-US official says
NGO Defense for Children International’s offices were raided after they reported the sexual assault of a 15-year-old by an interrogator while in Israeli custody
Took me seconds to find stories on the reverse. Both sides are at this.
What would you do if your teenage daughter was brutally raped ?? How would you feel if no one believed her? Ah but she is not Jewish…
Watch this and be ashamed
What would you do if your teenage daughter was brutally raped
Let the police deal with the perpetrator.
I’d not kill nor rape another innocent child in revenge, nor level the neighbourhood of the rapist in collective punishment for their actions.
I’m not even going to watch some random clip that I have no idea about the source, context, creative editing that may have occurred. I don’t make my mind up on propaganda emerging from either side of the conflict. I following stories coming from impartial organisations such as the UN, red cross/crescent, WHO etc.
Like this:
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-unicef-executive-director-catherine-russell-resumption-fighting-gaza
“Today, the Gaza Strip is once again the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. After seven days of respite from horrific violence, fighting has resumed. More children will surely die as a result.
“Before the pause, more than 5,300 Palestinian children were reportedly killed in 48 days of relentless bombing – a figure that does not include many children still missing and presumed to be buried under rubble.
“Should violence return to this scale and intensity, we can assume that hundreds more children will be killed and injured every day. And if we are not able to get water, food, medical supplies, blankets, and warm clothes to those in need, we will face a humanitarian catastrophe…
Killing a whole load of civilians who had nothing to do with the attacks on Israel is not something I would do. How many women ,children and humanitarian aid workers have to die before it would satisfy you. I do not believe that IDF are taking due care to protect civilians.Gaza Gaza is now a massive concentration camp .I hold Hamas ,Israeli govt. responsible for that and Biden for not stopping it
Starmer and co understand the principle of creating an economy that thrives, but they like the Tories have no intention of doing it, they believe in an economy that strives, but with no base from which to start no one can begin to strive
It’s the give a man a fish and he eats it, give a man a fishing rod and he can feed his family himself
Give the population food banks and they eat, give the population money and work and they spend it, circular economy created, everybody works and earns because of it
Give a rich man money and he keeps on keeping it, no economy
The rich take keep and use their money where it does them the most good in accumulating more in a country with the biggest tax breaks, and that’s what Thatcher Cameron Truss Sunak and now Starmer are all about, the race to the bottom to the best tax break country they can fashion where like Singapore the rich become the mega rich and the poor become destitute and desolate
The pretence that only the rich invest has always been a lie
Remember the early sixties when those of us with a brain reeled in horror at the thought of England’s government opening the door for American style supermarkets? we knew then our high streets and local businesses would be killed and yet what we hear from them constantly is Britains SMEs are the lifeblood of “the country” but they deliberately killed Hundreds of thousand of them
In every community in Britain we had the butcher the baker the dairy the greengrocer the hardware store the clothes shop the baby shop, and on and on
All gone, local communities no more, and everybody needed a car and more public transport, which is funny now that they’re trying to price us off the road for using them
They caused it then and they knew it then, but when there’s cash in it for the capitalist rich we know who doesn’t get considered
Labour in Scotland’s branch manager Anas Sarwar has been given his lines to say and has come out of hiding to support his Thatcher loving boss as the good guy while simultaneously condemning Margaret Thatcher as the bad guy
As clear as a clear cut case could be of “We’ll support this from our lands in the south and oppose it from our lands in the north”
The hope is to “Fool all of the people all of the time” and that used to work in the past in Scotland
Now Anas Sarwar looks even more like a balloon than he ever did before
[…] Source […]
Latest English government crackdown in immigrants will yet further destroy the economy.
Companies can’t get staff locally and now can’t afford to recruit from overseas, so they will shut, just like the local garage and pub in my village have.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67612106
And I see the English government is also cracking down yet further on who it is we are allowed to fall in love / move in with. They are that racist. This is about keeping British blood pure buy discouraging relationships with non-Brits. They don’t want me married to a French woman for example, as that would introduce ‘French turn’ blood and pollute their Aaryan British race. That is the only possible explanation for British citizens not being allowed to bring their partners to live with them in their own homes if these just happen to be foreign. The end to free movement was done for the same reason. The presence of my wife in their tartan and shortbread lebensraum was just unacceptable.
With or for enough money you can buy and sell any nationality you like the look of any day you like
These are the principles of England’s immigration system
I remember well when my parents were offered £10 *assisted passage* to emigrate, that’s leave Scotland for Australia or Canada or God knows where, because elsewhere needed skilled workers
They called it population control, apparently there were too many Scottish people in Scotland at that time and not enough work, really?
I call it economic ethnic cleansing, England cannot ever allow Scotland or Wales population to grow, guess why
Before that my ancestors were just expelled from their homes in Scotland and loaded onto boats (many in chains) to be *relocated* to other lands they knew not where until or if they even arrived there
The population of Scotland is almost identical to what it was 300 years ago yet England allowed itself to grow by a factor of 9X
Can you guess why that is yet? to use a Rolf Harris phrase
‘The trouble with Scotland, is that there are too many Scots’
Aye, England has done it’s best to clear Scotland of Scots to make room for it’s own. Did the same in Ireland.
I get particularly irked by all the anti-immigrant rhetoric because it’s about my wife… my sister in law… many of my close friends and colleagues (energy industry in Aberdeen).
Labour’s mug etc is about stirring up unpleasant sentiment towards these. It’s caused many Europeans to leave, going back to the safety and welcome of Europe.
Lucky I met my wife when free movement was in place. Now England would be actively trying to prevent us living together in the hope I’d marry British. True blood and soil nationalism.
If Sir Kid Starver is such a fan of the ”conviction ” politician Thatcher , does he agree with her assessment that Scotland simply has to vote in a majority of SNP MPs in order to become Independent ?
When Baxters soups joined the Better Together unionists and threatened the people of Scotland that a vote for YES would see Scotland suffer the dire consequences of not being in the EU and we’d lose the protection of the broad shoulders of the UK, I wonder if Baxters soups ever regret those words and actions now that Scotland has been dragged out of the EU by the same people that made the promises to Scotland that none of that would happen, and that by their words and actions around 50% of Scotland’s population ceased buying their soups because Baxters publicly ceased supporting 50% of their customers
How do Baxters workers feel now about the company that lied through their teeth to them and has brought them to redundancy, job losses and possible closure altogether
I wonder if Baxters soups ever considered that folk in Scotland bought Baxters soups solely because they believed in buying what they thought was a good Scottish product in support of business in their own country?
It appears the real broad shoulders were the 50% of real Scots who told Baxters where to shove their politics and their soups
Sorry Baxters workers, none of this was your fault, you know where the blame lies
Marlene and Fiona have posted their “What’s On” for December so you won’t be short of something interesting to listen to over the festive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut_O1cOVrNc
Alex Coal-Skuttle resembles Stan Laurel as he tries to make a point of order from the Holyrood bar.
And still the media in Scotland remain silent about a drunk British/English MSP in our parliament
We’ll just have to wait until the media can make it the fault of the SNP instead of maybe it was Alan Cochrane of the Telegraph at long last paying for drinks, so all the boosey British were celebrating the occasion
None of Johnson’s WhatsApp messages from the entirety of the first lockdown have been provided to the Covid inquiry reports the Times. He denies having deleted them and claims it must be due to some other technical issue.
https://archive.ph/dUkvQ
major deflection required today from the MSM,
Nicola Sturgeon ate my sausage,
as opposed to,
Bozo the Clown didn’t give a fuck.
It will be trans or ipad story most likely.
So this is what Brexit has done to Scotland’s mental well being. Hopes and dreams destroyed. Economy on the rocks. Stripped of birth citizenship by England, then of the right to vote for the government of our choice if we wanted to get this back.
You want to understand the despondence and low polling response rates among indy supporters. It’s this.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-health-survey-2022-volume-1-main-report/pages/5/
It’s also why Scotland will leave the union. Give Scots the choice at the ballot box and they’ll say Yes. Make an election a defacto indy vote and they’ll turn out like the did in 2014, but this time for Yes.
The age stats say it all. It’s the younger folks that have been robbed of a future and what was part of their identity. My daughter is European, not British. She hates what Britain has done to her and her generation. She despises it’s racist, parochial, inward-looking dislike of her family in France. She can’t wait to vote Yes.
—-
And no, it’s not Covid. Covid restrictions were coming to an end in the spring of 2021. step by step, and by the summer, life had returned basically to normal. The despair of 2020 around Covid was gone. And if it was covid, there would not be that age pattern. Older folks had the most to fear when it came to covid. Nope, this is a lot of the baby boomers having had a good run from the UK, and enjoying there golden years while the young have their future ruined by England’s government.
Johnson’s turn to answer questions at the Covid inquiry and he doesn’t look too comfortable, I hope he looks even worse by the end. It’s live on Youtube without any interruptions if you want to give the MSM a swerve.
Does anyone think he might be lying?
Part of one message shown at the inquiry.
“Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s OK”
I can’t say I’m surprised he said that, a lot of people have a lot to answer for.
Remember Rory Stewart’s summary of Boris Johnston’s lying capacities while listening to his evidence.
Boris Johnson branded ‘most accomplished liar in public life’ by former cabinet colleague
https://archive.is/dxBka
Is that the same Rory Stewart who is, no doubt, a very intelligent man but who was prominent in the No campaign, building cairns and whatnot on the border and reminding us that the Union was the best the world has ever seen and we should be grateful for all that is bestowed upon us? His family has ‘a place’ in Scotland to which they can escape the rigours of Anglo-British politics, chill out and revel in joie-de-vivre on one’s estate. Anyone who is anyone has ‘a place’ in Scotland.
We in Scotland know a lot about all the shortcomings that he ascribes to Boris Johnson because we suffered months of it in 2014 from all sorts of different people, including himself, and it has continued unabated ever since.
The very same – it tales one to know one you know.
PMQs
The Deputy speaker of the house of Commons referred to the Prime Minister then the leader of the opposition, now here it comes folks, “The leader of the Scottish Nationalists”
At that point Steven Flynn should have remained in his seat
In accepting this type of habitual disrespect from England’s politicians the SNP is allowing the English to label Scotland and the representatives we elect any way they like
What’s next *the wee jock nuisances*?
Point of order! while we understand it may be difficult at times for England’s representatives in this house to remember the name of the Scottish National Party perhaps it could be made easier if efforts were made to memorise three simple letters, SNP, if that makes it less taxing on the English brain cell
So, the English BBC in Scotland is using a Sturgeon story to distract from their own government’s lies being exposed in the covid enquiry by their blood on his hands wanker of a former PM.
I also see Kate Forbes wants to split the Yes movement by ending the SNP deal with the Greens, putting them back into minority government.
She knows the SNP needs Green voters giving them their FPTP votes to win constituency seats at Holyrood and, notably, when there is no PR list correction for UK elections. Or she should. About 20% of the ‘Yes tomorrow’ (10% out of 50%) are Green voters like my brother in law. They lend their vote to the SNP under FPTP.
I am very glad on reading this I did not put her first. My gut and my head were right it seems based on stories since.
https://archive.is/HPiGJ
For months now there’s been a concerted effort by the Unionists and their pet media to split the SNP/Green pact at Holyrood. The reason is obvious, even if the SNP don’t do as well as in the past as they have done then with Green support they will likely still lead the Scottish parliament and elect the First Minister.
Their desperation to stir things up between them has been clear as day in the media of late and we really can do without those more on right of the SNP such as Kate Forbes and Fergus Ewing joining in these attacks. The SNP/Green agreement is the biggest hurdle the Unionists face to taking control of the Scottish Government anytime soon. No wonder they want to end it as do Alba as the Greens are the most obvious block to any deal with the SNP for them.
Until Kate Forbes started criticising the SNP-Green’s deal during her leadership bid I had not heard and criticism of it. Her criticism supercharged it and gave it wings. The MSM were all over it like a rash whereas before they did not have a hook to hang their opposition to it. KF gave them that. She also realised it was a sure way to get publicity and has milked it at various times since.
From this early morning’s latest ‘look, a Mc squirrel” from BBC/Scotland of “Does nuclear have a role in Scotland’s energy mix?” created 6th December 2023, 06:16 UTC, it was clearly going to be another “make smoke” day from HMS James Cook, as the ex Prime Charlatan was due to put his head on the block at the Covid Inquiry…
Needless to say the original Smirky McSmirk promotion grew a Comments section a couple of hours later to keep the bots boiling, yet look at what appears over 12 hours later, “Judge throws out bid to withhold Nicola Sturgeon inquiry evidence” https://archive.ph/8SgWR, created 6th December 2023, 04:04 UTC
Likewise his “Special Scottish cabinet meeting to discuss £1bn budget black hole”, created 6th December 2023, 04:45 UTC.
Now look at the creation date and times again, and tell me this was not a premeditated distraction operation…
It’s perhaps understandable that James Cook’s priorities extend only so far as might get him a gong to flash on one his expensive taste in suits, but is it impartial journalism when not a single mention of Boris Johnson appears despite it being the talk of the steamie nationwide ?
Bring us the head of Nicola Sturgeon squeal all FOUR of the unionist parties in Scotland
It’s nuts. They fear her from the political grave. She’s no longer FM nor Cabinet; just getting on with life after a long career in the front line of politics.
But then Labour’s support continues to fall in polls UK-wide, and their apparently good VI level is a sampling mirage to start with. Starmer is chasing Tory votes because his chances of making No 10 are nothing like what face value polling might suggest. And he knows it, because he’ll be spending crap-loads on detailed polling, focus groups etc using right wing backer donations.
Hence the increasing levels of desperation from the English state broadcaster in Scotland.
I still don’t reckon Labour will win in England, all it’ll take from the Tories is their usual frighteners put on the population and the right change of leader, probably Mordaunt (which would be really good for Scotland in the real new Thatcher sense) the English right wing press doing their thing, and with the first whiff of Starmer losing ground will see England doubling down and voting Tory once again
Arise Penny Maggie Mordaunt sword carrier, favourite of King Charles
Aye, fascist England literally is now trying to keep the bloodline pure. You must now partner up with someone British, or pay the price.
https://archive.is/On5IH
Couples ‘devastated’ by migration visa rule changes
Couples planning a new life in the UK have been left heartbroken by changes restricting who can apply to live here.
From April 2024, British citizens or people already settled in the UK will need to show they earn £38,700 before their overseas partner can live here with them – a sharp jump from the current threshold of £18,600.
They also still need to show they are in a marriage or civil partnership when they apply for a family visa, intend to be within six months, or that they have been living together for at least two years.
‘Global Britian’ is a myth. It’s racist, inward-looking, blood and soil nationalist England.
The Tory party great unravel has started with Robert Jenrick resigning as Minister for Immigration whatever that is. It has to be very unlikely that he will be the only one so we might see some more in the coming days.
I’m going for a late spring General Election, Sunak is a dead man walking and I’ve no doubt he can’t wait now to get out of No 10 and head off for sunnier climes with his bags of loot, especially as he is yet to take the stand at the Covid inquiry, I expect the fallout from that will be the end for him.
Really is looking like Labour are starting to fall in the polls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#Graphical_summary
Their previous 45% is now 42% for December so far.
People starting to open their eyes about the right-wing shift of Starmer, with his Gaza response bringing this to their attention?
UK polls have SNP on the up too. Not back to recent norms by any means, but maybe signs of response rates picking up.
I think we need an election on the cards for the correct picture to really start filtering through, but recent movement is bad for Labour.
Starmer seems to be shifting right in response. Wait until he starts punting anti-migrant mugs again and backing the Rwanda plan. Then the fun and games will really begin.
Sunak’s father in law is doing oil deals with Israel.
UK Gov raised £731Billion in tax. Spent £1090Billion. 2020/21. Raised £817Billion 2019/20. Less tax. No so highly taxed.
Scotland raised £87Billion. Spent £54Billion. Westminster spent the rest. Scotland did not spend £109Billion pro rata.
UK/Scottish Gov accounts.
So the deputy speaker of the house of commons has apologised for calling Stephen Flynn “the leader of the Scottish Nationalists”
Too little too late and not publicly
She should make her apology to the SNP at the next PMQs before she calls on the leader of the SNP
She has the same level of respect of all those that oppose Scottish democracy (NONE) and don’t be fooled by the silly fake plummy accent she’s developed, she’s fae Paisley
And ye kent her faither?
Johnson is skewered over his repeatedly saying “let it rip”.
He said his response to Covid had to be regional and local, meaning different restrictions for differing areas of virus concentration
That kinda blows out of the water the complaint that Nicola Sturgeon for Scotland was being different just to be awkward
https://nation.cymru/news/johnson-blamed-welsh-covid-rates-on-singing-and-obesity-diary-claims/
Pot, meet kettle:
____________
Boris Johnson allegedly blamed high rates of Covid-19 in Wales during the pandemic on “singing and obesity”.
The apparent comments were included in the diary of Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s former chief scientific adviser.
They were dated September 2020.
Sir Patrick wrote: “Wales very high – PM says ‘It is the singing and the obesity… I never said that’.”
[…]
We always knew he was a racist.
What was it earlier, “England, Scotland and wherever”?
Following FMQs the BBC presenter says “It’s very unusual for all the opposition leaders to go on the same subject”
No it’s not, that’s exactly what they do every week, that’s why the opposition have a meeting to decide on which subject that will be, then when they’ve decided they convey that to the BBC so they can prepare for their news item following FMQs
This pretense by the BBC that they don’t know what the opposition is going to say just insults the public’s intelligence, and it’s a lie
If this system was not employed how would any FM know what information to have prepared to answer this dumb farce of FMQs that only exists to give the opposition a forum to advertise themselves
Like PMQs in England FMQs is just a wee show to make the folks at home feel like they’re participating in politics, none of it actually *needs* to happen at all
It’s just the public notion of democracy must be *seen* to be happening and was done as a gimmie to the media that claim they are the guardians of justice and public truth, so the UK government decided they could use it to their advantage so they let it happen
Of course they may not have foreseen that media like all the rest of society have their own biased opinions and report how and on what they decide, hence the ever threatened BBC license tax being reduced or withdrawn on a regular basis by whichever UK government happens to be in power at any given time, to keep the BBC under the control of whichever colour the current government happens to be, which is always English control no matter who’s in power
My generation will well remember when the only thing we ever heard about politics was before television and was printed after the fact in newspapers owned by biased corporations, so we had not a Scooby whether anything we ever heard or read was actually true or false, all we ever knew at voting time was one guy on a street corner shouting he’d make us all richer than the guy on the other street corner said he would
The posh one with a good suit would be the Tory and the shoddier dressed guy was Labour, Liberal Democrats could be spotted by the leather patches on their tweed jackets
That was in ancient times gone by before when we all knew our place in our Scottish colony, and we understood how wee and poor and useless we were compared to the big England
Those of us with a brain have learned a lot since then eh
This ‘pretence’ by BBC Scotland under James Cook’s direction treads the all too familiar path of his mentor the dishonourable Sarah Smith.
Whilst the rest of the UK gasps as the Charlatan Johnson is confirmed at the Covid Inquiry of being THE most disgraceful PM in UK Parliamentary history, responsible for wiping out thousands of lives, BBC/Scotland goes with –
“SNP school record a ‘national disgrace’ – Douglas Ross” published 25 minutes ago
“Will all of Scotland’s streets have 20mph limits?” 1 hour
“Bob Dylan sells Scottish Highlands estate for £4m”, 1 hour
“Olympic swimmer Hannah Miley ‘in awe’ of premature daughter” 4 hours
“Experts create 3D model to solve U-boat sinking puzzle” 8 hours
“Island school is cold and leaking, say parents” 3 hours.
Strange eh…
SOS..
All European countries have done badly in the PISA scores. The UK isn’t even among the worst, far less Scotland. RT has a report on it. shows that farrago of faux outrage was just a pantomime for the cameras:
https://archive.is/tqRjQ#selection-1087.0-1087.195
Good to see that small independent countries like Ireland and Estonia
are good at reading.
It perhaps should also be said that Scotland is measured on its performance in our second language, although we read English as written most folk in Scotland don’t speak English as written, we speak a mixture of Scots and local dialects interspersed with English words as required
A huge number of Scots are bilingual.
According to the 2011 census, there were 1.5 million Scots speakers, with another 267,000 people able to understand Scots but not read, write or speak it. This is around 33% of the population, and before we even get to fluency in Gaelic and other, ‘non-native’ languages on top of English. Could be as high as 50% bilingual.
This compares with 17.5% bilingual in England, most of whom you’d expect to be British first and second generation migrants rather than ‘native’ English.
My daughter is tri-lingual. Scots; French and English. Uses all three on a Daily basis. I speak to her in Scots, English and French, while her mother uses English and French. At school, she writes her work primarily in English, but speaks to friends in Scots too, occasionally French when asked.
People say the English have a problem with taking the time to learn other languages. This is true in my experience. The British are notably better, particularly in England.
It may be that the OECD has tweaked the computer algorithm that they use to calculate the PISA Scores. Not many realise that the final headline scores are the result of a computer algorithm. It may not be the only cause but hopefully the OECD will look at that possibility.
I think it was the 2015 science scores where there was a drop in the Science score for Scotland but not just Scotland because the overall average had fallen too. Up until that year the Science score for Scotland and overall average had been pretty steady then suddenly dropped below 500 in that year.and the average fell 12 points to 501. In 2018 Scotland’s science score was down again to 490 and the average to 493.
Guid oan the guy.
English police that operate in Scotland to police our movement by railway intervened to stop him. Headquartered in 25 Camden Road London, NW1 9LN.
You think Policing is devolved, but England is clever here. It lets us think we police ourselves, but it polices our movement. It’s just like Israel putting a massive prison wall around Gaza, then letting Gazans run the local police squad.
If you try to leave or enter Scotland, it’s English goose steppers asking for your papers. This is done for good reason; so it can shut our borders and deal with us if needs be. It’s the same reason broadcasting was not devolved, nor press regulation. It’s so England can police what we watch and read too.
Devolution was about giving us the feeling we had control over our country, while the barbed wire fences around it were still there and the gates could be closed with a single order from London should we not tow the line.
You’re talking crap as always with this anti-English nonsense.
BTP in Scotland are trained at Tulliallan which is in – Scotland. Their passing out parade is at – Tulliallan which is in – Scotland. Their officers are recruited from the People of Scotland who re mostly – Scots, They operate under – Scots Law. And I know some of them well.
They should have been merged with PS a few years ago as anyone living in Scotland would know, but this has been delayed. PS is Police Scotland.
https://www.btp.police.uk/lt/local-teams/scotland/
It’s you that seems fixated on ethnic blood and soil stuff as you talk about nationalities, where people we born etc.
I simply stated facts. Scotland’s borders are controlled by England’s government. It decides who gets in and who gets out of Scotland….. who is allowed to stay, and who is kicked out. It’s Navy patrols our waters, while it licenses our seabed to make money for it’s coffers.
Where geographically it recruits from and trains is totally irrelevant to the legalities imposed on us foreign country; one that has made Scots deciding the government they desire at the ballot box illegal. You could be an avid Scottish indy supporter working for the English border force, but you must turn my mother in law away at the Scottish border if England orders you to, even if you are totally opposed to that.
England likewise controls our media, deciding what we get to watch.
This is simple fact, which is why you don’t dispute it… but just call me in standard British nationalist parlance ‘anti-English’.
I never spoke like this before. It’s only since the English government declared that Scots trying to vote for indy peacefully at the ballot box was illegal have I done so, because that changed everything.
It broke the union, as is evident from polling, and is going to hit the English nationalist government full in the face soon enough.
You’re havering, as you do when somebody bothers to confront you about your utter wrongness.
Border Force is not the BTP which is British Transport Police. Nor is the Royal Navy. Nor do, as you put it:
“English goose steppers asking for your papers”
have anything to do with the BTP.
Nothing changes with you does it. You really could start a fight in an empty house. You seem to enjoy confronting people for merely expressing an opinion.
Highest number of the population go to university in Scotland. 30% from school. 25% mature students. 7% EU students. Down from 15%. Foreign students paying the full cost. The highest number of universities 15, plus colleges and apprenticeships. 5.4million pop.
The PISA test has been discredited. Selective education. A smaller number percentage in higher education. Canada has the highest 56%. US 40% in highest degree level. South Korea scores highly in Pisa tests. Selective only higher achiever take the test. The majority of pupil leave school before 16 years old.
I’ve been anti England since the age of around 13years because my own mother was English and no matter how much anybody tried to explain she could not understand why Scots were “so ungrateful” for what “England gave us”
The difficulty some people have between interpreting what is anti England and anti English is simply the word *English*
In an attempt at fairness conditioning compels some folk to defend the word because mentally just saying that word is anti the individual, that’s another kind of conditioning that comes with colonialism, “shush keep quite don’t let anyone hear you”
a tool of an oppressor, silence
One can’t talk about England without using the word English
What’s the invented Scottish nickname for an English person?
As far as I know there’s none, but every other country invented and uses various nicknames for them, but not Scotland, because shush or they’ll hear us
In the world today people are fitted with prosthetics if they need replacement parts
We have mechanical heart machines to keep us going, hearing aids, all sorts of enhancements to aid us in making our lives better
One day we will have many more and better surgical enhancements run by computers with new forms of plastics to enhance or change our appearance to whatever our hearts desire
Is it going to take that length of time before people understand that some people are not happy or there was a mistake with the bodies and structures and genders they were born with
A court will probably rule tomorrow that gender change is to be blocked when in just a few short years people will be buying that service like a visit to the dentist, and nobody by then will be standing with outstretched arms on beaches trying hold back the tide, because their own beautiful enhanced sons and daughters will already have had their new smiling shiny teeth, surgically altered noses, eyebrows and smart communication devices imbedded in their heads telling them something completely different
I remember the outraged horror from some people at the first heart transplant, and nobody ever mentions Dolly the sheep anymore, it’s all just ancient chip paper
There are people who’s ambition is to have their brain transplanted into a robot and potentially live forever, and you know what? it will happen
If I was 25 years younger, rather than moving into my first post-uni flat with the woman who is now my wife, I’d be being forced to turn down the job I’d just accepted, kicking starting my career after 6 months of struggling to find work*, and leave my own country to try and be with her. My salary would be well under the required level for a visa for her, as I would just be a fresh-faced graduate researcher on the lowest rung.
At the same time, I’d have had my birth citizenship (European) – a key part of my identify which is a protected characteristic – stripped from me, and on top of this, my right to vote for the government of my choosing also taken away from me on the basis of my (Scottish) ethnicity / national identity. The latter is discrimination on the grounds of a protected characteristic.
If my love tried to come to live with me in secret, the ‘staunch Scots’ guards patrolling the borders of my country – who are directly under the orders of another – would imprison her without trial and then deport her if she managed to make it past them.
It would be similar for my wee bro who is a decade my junior. There’s no way that his salary at the age he moved in with his US beau here would have passed the mark; just at the lower rungs of IT support. And even with past rules which permitted her presence, the ‘staunch Scots’ of England’s border forced were threatening to deport her during covid for not getting her visa renewed, while at the same time she was unable to do this as she was not allowed to travel due to covid.
This would all be happening due to the racism / xenophobia of the government (and its voters) which has done all this to me / my country but is not my own. The government of England.
If I complain about this, the supporters of said government call me an ‘anti-English racist’ in a level of psychological projection that would make Freud blush.
So yeah, I won’t beat about the bush sometimes, but will say it like it is. The above is the bare faced reality of the situation.
—
*At the time, i.e. the late 90’s, the job I got narrowly averted me having to leave Scotland to find work in England given the smoking ruin England had made of the Scottish economy. I was double degree qualified from two top unis, but there was no work in Scotland; you needed to ‘get on your bike’ to England, so Scotland could be stripped of wealth and talent, remaining an economic ruin. The job I got was related to oil & gas, which was making England rich, paying for stuff like the channel tunnel and lower taxes for English people. Many Scots did not even enjoy the lower taxes their oil was paying for because England had deliberately put them out of work.
I blame the Normans (not NMRN’s uncle). The English people are just as oppressed by the wealthy oligarchs as the rest of us. Making it an ethnic issue misses the point.
I want to live in a fair and egalitarian democracy, not a brutal oligarchy. In an independent Scotland we have a better chance of running our own affairs to suit ourselves – though it isn’t guaranteed.
Making it an ethnic issue misses the point.
I’ve never made it an ethnic issue, I leave that to British nationalists and their government in London. Hence I always talk about the ‘English / British government’ and it’s supporters in terms of responsibility.
It’s very important to do so given polling has Yes hitting record highs amongst English born residents of Scotland for the reasons you state.
Unless, of course the issue is along ethnic lines, like how English / British (identifying) can vote for the government of their choice / independence, but Scots / Welsh / Irish northern Irish need the English government’s permission for this. That is unquestionably a restriction of voting rights based on national identity / ethnicity. A Brit in Scotland can vote for their country of Britain to Brexit or re-join, but a Scot cannot vote for Scotland to become independent, re-join the EU etc. National identity / ethnicity are protected characteristic alongside race, religion etc, and all are based on self-identification. Scots not being able to vote freely for the government of their choice is the same as restricting voting rights for black… Jewish (identifying) people or similar.
The British / English government has used our oil money to lower taxes for English people as a bribe to these. That much is fact. But then English people were not really aware of the extent of this, as their government wanted to hide the amounts involved from Scots, which meant hiding it from everyone, including the population of England. This continues to this day.
People in England have been told it was their ‘hard work’ and ‘natural entrepreneurship’ that was creating the wealth that was being milked from Scotland’s waters, giving many on the right a false impression of their own abilities as a people. This probably fed into the sense of superiority over other European peoples and the brexit mentality among the gammon types south of the border.
We are now seeing how Britain performs economically without the support network of it’s European friends, and that’s very, very poorly. This is because Britain’s people are no more entrepreneurial nor hard working than their neighbours. So alone on the periphery, they are struggling, and that’s with billions still filling England’s coffers from Scotland’s resources.
Oh, and I would never ascribe an ethnicity to someone. That is how they see themselves. Self-id. It’s nothing to do with blood and soil or such-like, simply how someone feels. Hence you were free to write whatever you liked for it in the census, and nobody came to test you that.
It’s only a dirty word when people ascribe it to others, deciding who is and who isn’t of that ethnicity, rather than letter people decide this for themselves.
I am ethnically Scots & Irish but only because that’s how I feel. Nothing else qualifies me. If I felt ethnically British, then that’s what I’d be, even though my parentage etc would be entirely unchanged.
However, a racist might say I’m ‘Not proper British’ due to the Irish part of me, and that’s when the problem occurs. Someone else is trying to decide someone’s ethnicity, and that’s wrong.
For me, a Scottish person is someone who says that’s how they see themselves, and that’s it. We have lots of self-described English Scots, and many are Yes. 🙂
Starmer gets pulled up on the train on his way to Glasgow yesterday.
Also confronted with a lively protest at the station and the meeting hall.
Gaza protesters arrested at Keir Starmer Labour gala in Glasgow
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-67650946
Talking of Gaza – I just read this on X – so haven’t confirmed it. The BBC has nothing to say so far:
A British military team in the West Bank is working to prepare the Palestinian Authority to take over the administration of the Gaza Strip & the British Defense Minister confirms that this is being done in coordination with US.
https://x.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1732816324475093296?s=20
Ix there still a British Mandate in Palestine?
At least Starmer’s welcome to Glasgow is being reported by the BBC in Scotland, notably missing a Comments section – That is reserved for the 20hr old “SNP school record a ‘national disgrace’ – Douglas Ross”, itself a recycle of the prior PISA article – A less intellectually challenged perspective than from the Forres Gump is “Pisa – 33% of Scotland’s schools took part but only 4.7% of England’s schools were confident enough to do so – Scotland did far better” and “No credible academic uses the Pisa scores and proper tests show real progress in Scotland’s schools” over on Prof Robertson’s site…
On the BBC/UK site, comments are reserved for “UK paid Rwanda an extra £100m for asylum deal”, whilst the disgraced Johnson’s evidence to the Covid Inquiry is given an equal body swerve to BBC Scotland….
The media in Scotland might claim they only hold on their websites issues devolved to Scotland, but of course that is not true in its entirety, because as we have seen today yet another court ruling says there is nothing devolved to Scotland that cannot be overruled by an appointed Westminster MP, therefore in reality nothing is devolved to Scotland
Any decision by any Scottish minister or the government in Holyrood can be overruled by one man in London, and the reason given? there doesn’t have to be one, he only has to not like it so can prevent it
Alister Jack has just been given an award as the best Scottish MP
Iron cross was it?
From the National:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23977329.read-full-lady-haldane-ruling-scottish-gender-bill-block/
“SCOTLAND’S highest civil court has ruled that the UK Government’s blocking of controversial gender reforms was lawful.”
I’m fairly sure this was the OUTER Court of the Court of Session, with just one judge sitting and ruling, so I’d imagine it could be appealed to the INNER Court of Session, which IS Scotland’s “highest civil court”, before going to the UKSC.
But hey, I’m just a punter not a journalist.
And in reality, if it can be appealed to the Inner court, then I think it must be, whatever anyone’s view of the Bill itself.
Time for Scotland’s judiciary to stand up for Scotland, and not bend the knee to Westminster.
Lady Haldane is indeed a Lord Ordinary of the Outer House, appointed in 2021.
https://www.judiciary.scot/home/judiciary/judicial-office-holders/senators-of-the-college-of-justice/supreme-courts-list
If an appeal to the Inner House is possible (called a reclaiming motion), it would be heard by 3 Judges, (from the First or Second Division), and in cases of unusual significance, by 5.
Clearly to me anyways, it should be 5 – if applicable.
https://judiciary.scot/home/judiciary/judicial-office-holders/senators-of-the-college-of-justice/lady-haldane
“She was appointed by the Advocate General for Scotland as Standing Junior Counsel firstly to the Forestry Commission in 2001, and then to the Home Office (2008-2011). Between 2010 and 2016 she served as an ad hoc advocate depute with the Crown Office.”
Interesting.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23978775.gender-reform-bill-row-legal-expert-explains-happens-now/
I agree. But in the article:
“The Scottish Government has 21 days to decide whether or not to pursue the legal challenge to the Inner House of the Court of Session, where it would be heard in front of three judges.”
Or 5 according to the website.
It’s 2023 and England’s government is still behaving like it’s 1692 Salem Massachusetts with Tory MP Alister Jack as Westminster’s Witchfinder General
I really do think they believe they’re in a big budget movie featuring themselves as the colonial masters of Scotland, and by Jove they’re going to exercise and be seen to exercise their authority
I’m not a fan of the whole gender argument but on an evolutionary level it is going to happen, just as everything that can be predicted always eventually does and the world doesn’t end like they said it would, Star Trek sliding doors and Space phones, we’ve got it all now, the lot
We can transplant everything onto anything, fabricate whatever we need to replace whatever falls off of us and fit it with a life long computer to keep it going
“Ghost in the Shell” is just around the corner, Wax on Wax off, we have the power to rebuild you any way you like, and in a few years we’ll make an appointment with the dentist and be transformed by the afternoon, and everything and everyone will be as beautiful or different as they desire
They can hold stuff back, but they can’t stop human evolution
Have they never seen David Attenborough on the Galapagos islands?
Evolution devolution, it’s all the same to them in Westminster, just words they refuse don’t and won’t understand
Devolution is dead ( if it ever really existed ! ).
The Court decision to uphold the objection from the Secretary of State for Scotland
( sic ) to overrule the Scottish Parliament’s CROSSPARTY decision on Gender Reform would appear to give the green light to an unrepresentative Westminster Government
( as far as Scotland is concerned ) to challenge any Scottish legislation they do not like .
In this United Kingdom ( sic ) it seems that Scottish , Welsh and N.Irish legislation can all be challenged by Westminster but English legislation cannot be challenged by the other constituent parts of The Union .
There is a name for this , I think , but it escapes me for the moment .
Alistair Jack has become Scotland’s first dictator of modern times.
One man, unelected, can overrule a democratically elected parliament at the stroke of a pen. He is truly England’s governor for the Scottish colony now.
Indeed, what the SNP have done by taking court action on these things is to show that the government in England can overrule Scotland at will, and by the will of one man chosen by England ergo there is no union, Scotland is a colony
How many times must the government of Scotland show our citizens what England thinks of us and our position in the world before they shake off their apathy and stand up on their own two feet
Every person in Scotland that thinks of themselves as a unionist must now admit that the votes of EVERY man and woman in Scotland means nothing and that every vote in England are the votes that hold the power and more relevant than ANY vote in Scotland by any single person and indeed the government we choose
Millions of people in Scotland vote, yet one man in England that hardly anyone voted for decides whether that vote will count or not
The shouty Salmond party insists on UDI or withdrawing our MPs from Westminster in protest, just dae sumthin, is what they use in a blame game amateur school politics game of kid the punters on with their constant moaning
They do this so we won’t vote SNP, and who’s hands does that play right into?
If Scotland isn’t involved we’re out in the cold completely, the SNP proscribed as something they’re not or arrested and vilified as rabble rousers, and who’s hands does that play right into?
The SNP is a political party, not soldiers, they don’t and can’t raise armies to attack and sack Westminster power, all the squealing in the world will not make England relinquish their power over Scotland except for money body bags or international pressure
With People power we get that international pressure, one big hammer for one big nail, don’t let anyone split the strength of our voting power, one big hammer and we can bang home whatever Scotland wants
Independence is only the beginning
There’s been another poll, apparently 10% of Scots are opposed to human rights
It’s said that every country has around 10% of the population that are morons, well there they are folks, and they voted, which is an anomaly in itself considering they say they don’t want the human right to vote, yet they did
Kinda puts any notion that polling is in any way reliable into perspective
On that same note another so called independence blog has its posters recommending the spoiling of ballot papers, well now we know where that 10% of Scotland’s morons are
They’re so brainy and well informed they want their own human rights removed because that’ll get them independence somebody’s told them
I have a 3 year old great granddaughter that loves cartoons too
We were told rights would not be weakened but here is another brexit benefit…
“Part-time and shift workers to lose up to £248m holiday pay in UK rule change
Experts say alteration to holiday rights is one of the most significant erosions of employment protections since UK left EU”…
“A government spokesperson said: “We are reforming this legislation to make overtime, holiday pay and entitlement legislation less complex and easier for employers to follow.””
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/08/part-time-and-shift-workers-to-lose-up-to-248m-holiday-pay-in-uk-rule-change
What can you say other than where are the Labour Party in all of this and then you read this,
“Labour officials could not guarantee, however, that they would overturn the change if they won the next election.”
They’re just as bad as the other lot, I can’t understand why the Trade Unions are still backing them with their members money.
Headline is a bit bit misleading this refers to people on part year, not part time contracts, which are completely different.
Part time = you work the same amount of weeks per year as a full time employee but less hours per week,ie
Full time employee 52 weeks per year / 40 hours a week
Part time employee 52weeks per year / 20 hours a week
Part year you work less weeks per year, ie
30 weeks per year /40 hours a week
30 weeks per year / 20 hours a week
Using the categories above the amount of holiday you are entitled to per year as a percentage of days worked is:
Full time employee 52 weeks per year / 40 hours a week: 11.7%
Part time employee 52weeks per year / 20 hours a week : 10.7%
Part year employee 30 weeks per year /40 hours a week: 20%
Part year employee 30 weeks per year / 20 hours a week: 18.6%
As you can see part year employees are entitled to a larger holiday entitlement percentage than full year employees (also to a lesser extent part time full year employees are entitled to less holiday than full time full year employees). The change in the legislation simply gets rid of this discrepancy and everyone’s holiday entitlement percentage will be the same no matter what type of contract they are on.
British/English government and opposition don’t just have children’s blood on their hands, but are right up to the armpits in it. Aiding and abetting extremist ethno-religious genocide. Just standing there watching the slaughter and not stepping in for purely self-serving reasons.
They disgust me. I am so glad I am not English / British as if I was, I’d be utterly ashamed.
https://archive.is/bbVhD
UK abstains on UN vote demanding ceasefire in Gaza
THE UK chose to abstain on a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza that was only blocked by the US.
Thirteen of the 15-member security council voted in favour, but the action was blocked because of Washington’s veto on Friday.
There’s 100’s of thousands of English people who are as disgusted as you are, probably millions, after all they’ve been marching every week in order to show that.
Yes, I had noticed. I do watch the news. 🙂
I feel sorry for these people to have their government shame their country like this. If I was them and it was my government, I’d be marching with them.
You’re allowing your own prejudices to over-rule critical thinking – The reason the populace of the UK are so FN angry is that the political/media class hold an opinion in excess of 70% of the public disagree with, and that is heavily English.
I am being falsely accusing me of prejudice. In my post, as always, I attack the British / English government and the Labour opposition, I do not make any attack whatsoever on British / English voters. I said if I was one of them, I would be ashamed of my government, i.e. I would be just like those marching in protest against it. I admit I should have added ‘too’ at the end in retrospect.
I never attack English / British voters, only political parties for they actions and those that cheerlead these. This is why people have to go down the route of insinuating I am ‘anti-English’ by just making stuff up. If you ask them to link to a quote where I am being so, they cannot do it, instead, readers are told they need to read anti-Englishness into my every word even if it’s not there.
People also say stuff like ‘don’t bring ethnicity into it’ then breathlessly talk about ‘Scots / Scottish… Irish… French…. Israeli’ which, unless I’m mistaken, are, erm, ethnicities (by dictionary definition a recognised people based on mutual group self-identification, and not some sort of blood and soil thing that racists believe in). It seems for some reason we can’t mention one ethnicity in particular (the E one); that of the partner nation in the UK to our own. And it’s British nationalists who are very keen we don’t utter that word.
However, I do note currently the most voters in England are still saying they’d vote for Sunak’s or Starmer’s Tories, so are, in effect, endorsing the positions of these on Gaza. If people started saying they’d vote for other parties such as the Libs or Greens, they could pressure Labour into a stance change.
For example, it appears a case of credit where credit is due here:
https://www.libdems.org.uk/news/article/an-immediate-bilateral-ceasefire-in-israel-and-gaza
Starmer is a weather vane and any polling changes will have him changing stance. He wants the millions he can make from being PM so much he will call for a ceasefire if that suddenly looks like the better way to get the keys.
Marching will do no good if you plan to vote Labour when the time comes. Putting an X in the box for Labour ill be you endorsing Starmer’s no ceasefire stance whether you like it or not. When you vote, you vote for the whole package.
Finally, I note we stopped having a UK government with the 2021 election being overturned. That meant that Scotland was no longer voluntarily choosing to be ruled from London, ergo it ceased to be one of Scotland’s governments. My comment was reflecting this and my dissociation from any sense of Britishness, for what they are doing is not in my name. I accepted the 2014 result, and that it meant Scots had endorsed London as representing them on the world stage. That ceased to be the case in 2021 and a new iref is ended before the Westminster government can be considered a UK one.
Meanwhile, I plan to keep marching for a two state solution here in the UK, for Scotland is becoming Palestine without the bombs.
If Alastair Jack can overrule our parliament personally, that makes Scotland now an England-controlled dictatorship.
and a new iref is ‘needed’ before
And oh man that opener. Whit a mess. But then I am mildly dyslexic, so sometimes I can’t see the mistake (from rearranging), as when quick scanning before posting, the brain reads the mistake as correct and how it intended to express itself. Only some time later, when I re-read, I be like ‘WTF’. 😦
That’s a false dichotomy. If you constantly denigrate the “British/English” or the “English/British” government you must, at the same time, be criticising the voters who elect those politicians and government.
Also, there is no English Government, only a British or UK government.
Go to any random article and search for “English” and you’ll see that you are by far the most frequent exponent. Apart from Dr Jim, hardly anyone else mentions it.
However, it is true that in any blog on Scottish independence it will be necessary to distinguish between what is Scottish and what is English sometimes.
at the same time, be criticising the voters who elect those politicians and government.
Yes, I am doing that. If you vote for a party, it’s actions are your responsibility. Voting is a deadly serious matter, as the British / English government / opposition response shows.
Tory voters are responsible for the policies of Tory governments. Labour voters for the policies of Labour governments. Don’t cast a vote if you don’t want to take responsibility for what the party you put in office does. That or spoil your ballot.
If the party you voted for starts doing things like denying Scots the vote, backing genocide in Gaza… stop voting for that party! Unless, that is, you back these policies or don’t care enough to fight against them.
And FPTP isn’t an excuse. 2015 Scotland shows that neatly. FPTP actually is a system which favours revolution, just not stability nor consensus policy.
So your assertion that you never attack English/British voters is false.
Meanwhile, I see Forbes is basically saying we should accept England’s governor general overruling the laws our parliament makes.
I am so glad I didn’t put her first. She keeps disappointing me, while my opinion of Yousaf has become increasingly positive as he makes his own mark as FM; something that’s happening with Scots in general, including more unionist Scots.
The difference between Forbes and Yousaf, is he doesn’t see things as about him and his personal views, religion etc. It was reason I put him first and didn’t go for Forbes. She of course said she’d have voted on same sex marriage based on her personal religious beliefs and not those of her constituents / Scots in general. As a secularist, I am totally apposed to politicians bringing their religion into the process of making laws for people not of that religion.
The Labour people in Scotland will vote Labour on the incorrect assumption that they can put pressure on a new Starmer Labour government to reverse all the damage the Tories have done, and once again like in Blair’s time Starmer will change nothing, so when the Labour people and their unions eventually understand that situation they’ll then employ their strike action tactic in exactly the same way as they did against the Tories, and off we’ll go again with nothing changed
There’s loyalty and total stupidity, and the Labour people will demonstrate the second choice, because they always do
England will get the new Tories they wanted and the rest of us will continue to be stuffed once again, because what England wants England gets and those that voted Labour in Scotland will scratch their heads making Scooby Doo noises still wondering why their party isn’t doing what they wanted them to do
Next time eh? or the next time after that? one day? and still they’ll vote Labour because they don’t know what else to do
It’s still better than voting for your own country though innit
Is it? is it really? Aye right OK then Scooby
In England Nigel Farage’s Reform party are catching up with the Tories
Has nobody figured out why Nigel Farage is on the biggest TV show in Britain right at this moment yet?
England could have itself a three way split with Tory and Reform as the majority parties
What ya gonna do then Starmer? behead some asylum seekers for more right wing votes?
Though ratings are down by at least over 2 million this year for the show with farage being the cause.
And antanddec are saying maybe they should have a break from politicians.
I don’t think the TV companies randomly select politicians thinking the public wants to see them, I’m more inclined towards the idea that it’s a deliberate promotional exercise in support of the politics they prefer
Mrs Dr Jim has been watching Farage’s contribution on the show and she says she’s never seen him more *well behaved* and playing the affable Mr nice guy routine for the cameras
I think given itvs share price bombing and the fact they are struggling they wanted a boost to viewing figures. In the hope to get more advertisers back. (Thought are not ixsformerly known as twatter territory yet)
They got a boost with hapless hancock, egwina curry, johnsons dad and mad nad previously and thought fartage would do the same. And he has caused viewing figures to bomb.
Ive not paid attention as I dont watch crap on tv generally, but a quick google shows farage has been racist on the show. If thats being nice then robinson and hitler must also be misunderstood.
There does seem to some sort of movement going on that’s probably not just variance wobble.
It’s from Labour to Conservative. Labour falling, Con climbing, Reform climbing too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#Graphical_summary
That looks rather like Labour to reform movement. Or more likely Lab back to Con with Con to Reform.
Despite what comments btl elsewhere say, Kate Forbes hasn’t changed her position at all. During the leadership contest she said the Scot Gov should talk to the UK Gov and reach a compromise, so that the resulting Bill could be enacted as soon as possible – for the sakes of the trans and potential trans people themselves. And I agreed – posted that here myself. She has said the same thing now. June 2024 would have seen a tidier Act and more rights for trans.
That would have taken the wind out of the sails of the extreme anti-trans activists – and the extreme pro-trans activists. The issue would have mostly died, and trans people get on with their lives (I know and know of some). The resulting Bill could have been passed by now, enacted early in the New Year, and taken effect after a few months (there’s nearly always a delay, sometimes years).
But with it dragging on transphobia has become more widespread, and amongst the general public, not the few handfuls of extreme activists.
The main reason for the challenge to the S35, however, was for the sake of Devolution, and the problem with that is that with it being thrown out by the Lord Ordinary in the Outer Court – one single judge as normal, there is now no real option BUT to enter a reclaim motion in the Inner court, otherwise this is left as a precedent for future border raids by the UK Government’s Viceroy and Governor General of Scotland – Alastair Jack.
Appeal – or bow down and greet your Imperial Masters.
Allister, not Alastair.
The resulting Bill could have been passed by now, enacted early in the New Year, and taken effect after a few months (there’s nearly always a delay, sometimes years).
This is fantasy sadly.
The way to end the problem is that trans people are given the same legal right as Kate Forbes. Her Christian faith is legally recognised by her simply self-iding as that, just as Joanna Cherry’s lesbian status is. Likewise for the Scottish ethnic / national identity of both (I assume). Neither have to prove these protected characteristics, as that would be impossible, never mind grotesquely invasive and degrading. Instead, they are legally recognised for them, and offered associated protection under the law against related discrimination, by simple self-identification. Self-id applies to all protected characteristics bar one; (trans)gender status, which, just like all the others, is something as old as the human race.
The Scottish Government must seek to right this wrong by all available routes. We cannot have a Scotland where one group is discriminated against in this way. Either we all have to prove our protected characteristics, or nobody has to. The devolution aspect, as you note, compounds this even more, and is a classic example of how revolting English / British governance can be. Right up there with ‘Bombs for Gaza Bairns!’.
Forbes is at best naïve in suggesting a re-worked bill would be permitted by our British / English government overlords, without speculating on her likely ulterior, personal belief related motives being put before country as she said they’d be over same sex marriage. Which is why she’s not fit to be FM. She was wrong before and is still wrong IMO. Yousaf is right to be 100% secular here, for Scots are no more all Muslim than they are all Wee Free.
“This is fantasy sadly.”
If you are going to completely contradict someone you should base your contradiction in reality, with proof rather than opinion.
Look at the timetable, it’s just about exactly the one I highlighted as having been possible for the GRRB, in fact a fair bit shorter.
https://www.gov.scot/policies/human-rights/childrens-rights/
“On 7 December 2023, the Scottish Parliament unanimously passed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill (‘the UNCRC Bill’ or ‘the bill) for the second time.”
Now, who do I believe, SPICE and the Scot Gov – or you?
There are now 4 weeks for the UK Gov to challenge the Bill, before it goes for Royal Assent, though that can happen sooner if the UK Gov state they are not going to refer it to the UKSC.
I was talking about the Scottish Government being able to extend self-id to all protected characteristics in Scotland, which was the intent of GRR.
Do you believe the Scottish government can get trans self-id passed here if England is not doing the same?
YOU specifcally quoted this from my comment:
“The resulting Bill could have been passed by now, enacted early in the New Year, and taken effect after a few months (there’s nearly always a delay, sometimes years).”
To which you replied:
“This is fantasy sadly.”
Can’t you even read and understand your own posting?
Forbes is becoming quite the English / British state broadcaster’s star!
Which is why I feel I made the right call in the leadership contest. They absolutely hate Yousaf. 🙂
I agree with her. Anyone who believes that men can turn into women is delusional and not fit to be FM.
However, I don’t think HY believes that. He is just dishonest about the conflict between his religion and same sex marriage and attraction. Kate Forbes is honest.
I hope the Scottish Government will recognise that S35 is a section of the Scotland Act and so is lawful. It is not s35 that’s the problem, it’s devolution. Devolution needs to go.
At the risk of labouring the point in case you don’t get it, exactly the same could have been done with the GRRB, if there was a will. Somerville made a statment back in June 2023 about her intention to do this with the UNCRC Bill; she could have done the same with the GRR Bill.
if there was a will
On behalf of the British / English government.
The law is that all devolved policy can be overruled by the British / English government. That’s what devolution is defined by; power devolved is power retained.
There should be no need for court cases. They can only fail with respect to devo, while such failure promotes indy.
Not quite. The SoS has to show reasonable grounds. In the case of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child the SG modified the bill to comply with UK Gov objections.
They could have done the same with the GRR but chose to persist with Self ID in contradiction with provision in the Equality Act. The timely case of “Isla Bryson” Self Id-ing into a women’s prison although a sex offender demonstrated the flaw in the legislation.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/section/35/enacted
Agreed 10% of something is always better than 100 of nothing
I will never support your view on GRA the Act was voted for all parties including some
Tories in the Scottish Parliament.
That’s OK, we disagree on this issue.
On laws being passed, the Witchcraft Act wasn’t repealed till 1951 and it was replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act which was repealed in 2008. Sometimes governments pass stupid laws.
Isla Bryson never shared prison facilities with women. It’s right wingers that bring up that canard. And I personally totally agree that if e.g. prisoner poses a threat to other prisoners, they should be held separately from these, which has well, always been the case, whether it’s a woman who sexually assaults other women (sexual assault is way more common in women’s prisons than men’s), or a transman that assaults men.
As for self-id…
Maybe to make things fair, we should change which protected characteristic isn’t allowed to self-id on a yearly basis. Right now it’s trans. Next year, it can be lesbians. They cease to have any protection under the law for being a lesbian, unless they can prove they have been living as one for at least 2 years, including an expert medical diagnosis to that effect. If e.g. Joanna Cherry wanted to sue a venue for discriminating against her on the grounds of being a lesbian, she’d have to first go through the process of proving she was one to obtain her lesbian recognition certificate. This would include disclosing girlfriends, the extent of their intimacy, assessment of how she dressed / behaved, testimonials from work colleagues etc. And of course having her head examined by a shrink.
Then they year after that we can do Jewish. Maybe the next year Scottish? You can only claim to be Scottish if you can prove it, and that you don’t secretly harbour British identity. Could form the test for a future Scottish passport?
This would create equality.
You do not require a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) in order to gain protection under the Equality Act 2010. All you have to do is live in your trans persona. The GRC is about changing gender on birth cert passports marriage cert & death cert.
You are correct about the prison treatment of trans people. The process of the Scottish Prison Service was/is to sequester the trans prisoner away from the general prison population to assess them to determine if they pose a risk to the general population, whether the general prison population poses a risk to the trans prisoner and whether the trans prisoner poses a risk to themselves. This process takes several days before a decision is made.
Factually correct I concede, but to be officially recognised as having the gender you identify as, and this private knowledge, you need a GRC. Otherwise you will always be F on the documentation you provide to others, when you wish to be M.
This is particularly humiliating, as it is highly like to reveal you as trans to others, when it’s none of their business. Your official documents don’t match what you are saying is your gender = you must be trans. Given the rise in hate crimes towards trans people driven by the right-wing press over self-id, this is a worsening problem.
It’s like having someone’s LGBH status on their passport. Their race, religion, ethnicity too… Might as well put ‘Jew’ or ‘Bisexual’ people’s passports or the like.
People holding other protected characteristics don’t face this problem. They have full legal recognition and legal privacy around their protected characteristics by simple self-id.
Put another way, we only know Joanna Cherry is (apparently as it’s not proven) a lesbian because she insists on telling everyone she is at every possible opportunity.
Unlike her, most people keep their sexuality generally private and may be horrified at the idea of everyone finding this out. This is particularly the case with LGB folks who still suffer discrimination.
But if you are a trans person, you are legally what your birth certificate and all your documentation says you are. Yet you are telling people the opposite, asking to be address as he instead of she etc. And so your privacy is breached.
How does self-ID contravene the Equalities Act? A trans person does not need a GRC to be protected under the EQ Act.
Section 11 of the Act says the protected characteristic ‘sex’ concerns ‘reference to a man or to a woman’. Section 212 (1) defines men and women as ‘male’ and ‘female’, e.g. ‘“woman” means a female of any age’.
So you support Alistair Jack. How could the legislation be made to comply with what Dictator Jack would agree with. Do tell. Independence supporters need to put up or shut up. Do they want a real Scottish parliament or a wee diddy one as per Billy Connelly s comment years ago. Should we just do what Jack tells us. No way. I will never agree to that The GRA matter has been hijacked by sad bigoted men like those who haunt the comments on The National and right wing feminists. I say that as someone who is a feminist.
“So you support Alistair Jack.”
Good grief 😦
I am all for revising the legislation, but there is no way Jack would pass anything where self-id is fairly and equally extended to trans, ending the discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic which is currently enshrined in UK laws.
Being lesbian, gay, bi, religious… seeing yourself as belonging to a specific ethnic / national group / race… having a transgender identity… are part of human nature / how a person feels in a deeply emotional way. The essence of their soul and mental well being. These protected characteristics are all as old as the human race.
All are legally recognised by self-identification alone, except one; trans. One group is picked out for humiliating and degrading treatment, having to prove they are not a dangerous lying perv before being legally accepted for who they are (presumption of guilt, with the requirement to prove innocence). A group of people where, as usual, the vast majority pose no more risk to others than the next man or woman on the street.
What’s deeply ironic, is that right now we have people angrily denouncing the collective punishment of innocent Palestinians for the actions of Hamas, yet at the same time, they demand the collective punishment of all trans people – namely the invasive, humiliating and degrading process of obtaining a GRC – for the risk a small number of these might pose in very rare / exceptional circumstances.
Confusion over what is an English government and a UK government is easy
The government of the UK is elected by the population of England and becomes the government of the UK, just because Scotland is allowed to vote in such elections does in no way ever mean Scotland has any choice whatsoever, so English government it is
If Scotland did not cast one single vote in favour of any of the English registered political parties no difference would be made to which one of them won a general election
This has been so for around the last 60 years, and I cannot be bothered going back any further in so called British political history to check if it was ever any different
If you support Scottish self determination you cannot support a government located in another country that has ten times the population than the country in which you live, and that outvotes your country every single time
This is not and never was by England the democracy of any kind of union, this is and always was the absorption of Scotland
The population of the British isles is engineered deliberately to reflect one country, or each country in the so called union of countries would have the power over its own immigration system, but this is not allowed by England on the ridiculous insulting excuse that people would flock to Scotland just so they could migrate into England because Scotland is not a desirable place to be
This is bunkum and hogwash, if by their own words the English government of the UK lavishes all sorts of money on Scotland yet somehow nobody really wants to come here
If that were remotely true why does it bother them so much as to prevent this many nobody people coming to Scotland that don’t want to be here?
I am not an anti English person, I freely admit to having little respect for them, but that is a matter of no importance to the subject, I am and shall remain anti the country of England’s domination of Scotland voted for by people who don’t live here
My personal taste preferences do not include blue cars or white dogs, but I’ve never kicked the door of a blue car nor have I ever kicked a white dog, because I’m not anti car or dog
English people fit into that same category of my personal taste, I wouldn’t have them live in my house given the choice, but accept freely they have the right to shit and park elsewhere
The notion that men can’t become women or the other way round is practically prehistoric
From ancient times enhancements to the human condition have been made from wooden teeth to sheep cloning, from the surgical interventions of sawing of a gangrenous leg to replacing it with a carbon fibre blade that can make it possible for a human to outrun some animals
Evolution is badly misunderstood as just a natural phenomenon that happens on its own in isolation
Human evolution in the future will see full body transformations and enhancements of every kind desired with replacement parts fabricated and installed at will
The future human will be whatever it wants to be, and all around the world right at this moment scientists are working on that very thing, and have been since before the second world war, whatever you might be born as will be engineered before conception, and that’s only if you’re going to do it the very old fashioned way, because by then children will be created and incubated outside the bodies of the men or women that want such replacements for themselves
Ghost in the Shell
Does anyone think that if the UK Government had lost the Section 35 case in the Court of Session then they would just have shrugged their shoulders and said “that’s that then”?
I certainly don’t they would have appealed and fought against this even if they believed that they could not win they would never have thrown in the towel until there was a knockout blow that did mean the end.
I say the Scottish Government should do the same and go all the way to the Supreme Court with this otherwise the question “could any law passed by the Scottish Government be overruled because Westminster disagrees?” will always be hanging in limbo.
I hear the argument from Kate Forbes that the Scottish Government should throw in the towel on this one and just walk away now without appealing. I know her view on the GRA bill itself and that she is totally against it so is it for this reason that she wants the Scottish Government just to accept that Westminster can do what it likes with Scots Law?
What if this was a different bill that she had strongly supported, a bill that had the full backing of all parties in Holyrood that Westminster wanted to strike down?
The question is, if she had been First Minister would she have supported challenging Westminster in court over striking down a bill she was fully behind?
I guess we won’t ever know the answer to that question but we can speculate as to what her position might have been. That’s the point for me, it’s nothing to do with the contents of any individual bill, it’s about the right of Holyrood to pass laws in devolved areas without Westminster interference just because they happen to be fighting a culture war over an issue and see the opportunity to flex their muscle simply for the sake of scoring political points.
That’s simply all it is about in this case, never forget that until vey recently the Tories too were in favour of a GRA bill of their own that included self ID.
S35 of the Scotland Bill makes it quite clear that Holyrood does not have the right to pass any law whatever. I posted Andrew Tickell’s analysis on the next thread. Worth a read IMO.
If any of this were just about GRA the government in England would have applied the section 33 order which is to say specifically it was out with the Scottish governments powers so amend accordingly, but they chose to use the section 35 which is the *we don’t like it veto order*
The government in England is saying that no matter what any court judgement may be we will change the law, avoid the law, ignore the law, in order to do what we want but the Scottish government and the people who vote for it are subservient in perpetuity so suck it up serfs
This attitude by the England government is clear over their own Rwanda bill that every court keeps rejecting, they’re just going to avoid and ignore this pesky nuisance called *the law* and do whatever the hell they like
All of this is from a backdrop of a PM that was never elected by the country or even his own party members, Rishi Sunak was just installed as a replacement by Tory MP pals in the house of commons for the one they fired
This morning on the Martin Geissler BBC Scotland diddy politics show they got Tory Graig Hoy on to defend all of this basically saying England is Britain and Scotland must dae as it’s telt, but of course as usual BBCs Martin Geissler forgets to mention that we’re supposed to be in a union of equal countries and well, there’s not anything that sounds very equal about being told tae dae as yer telt, whitever it is we tell ye
In another segment we were told that if Labour won the general election and say Ian Murray became sec of state he could just remove the section 35 order if he felt like it
So one man, that’s any man from a British English ruling party can decide a thing for or against the entire population of Scotland’s voters on a whim as long as he holds a seat in the English parliament
The PISA education scores
A headmaster of a school in Scotland was also interviewed this morning saying the PISA scores are political and take no account of long term University or positive employment destination outcomes in which Scotland ranks highest in the UK
Quite the endorsement.
Stephen Daisley in the English Spectator.
https://archive.is/r6KaN
The SNP should have listened to Kate Forbes
What I take from this is that the SNP were right not to listen to Kate Forbes.
Andrew Tickell’s analysis of the court decision in the National makes the point that I was trying to make earlier that this is not about the particular bill that has been vetoed but the bigger picture of all future bills. He also observes that because of the seriousness of this decision then the Scottish Government have little choice other than to appeal against the decision.
https://archive.is/HdcDP (posted by Capella on the other thread)
You have to ask, just what is the point of devolution if it is not to allow a Parliament elected by the Scottish people the opportunity to elect politicians who can choose to make different policy decisions from Westminster in areas that they are responsible for. This decision if it stands is the end of the road for Scotland to elect politicians who can choose to differ if the party in power in Westminster disagree.
Holyrood becomes a sham parliament subject to the Westminster parliament’s chosen Secretary of State for Scotland’s whim.
Surely this is anti-english?
https://archive.is/ZxTYk
Humza Yousaf says UK ‘complicit in killing children’ in Gaza
FIRST Minister Humza Yousaf said the UK was “complicit the killing of thousands of children” after the UK voted against a ceasefire in Gaza, as activists protested in Glasgow.
Yousaf, who has Palestinian in-laws, said it was “incomprehensible” that the UK abstained from a vote at the UN Security Council.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, he said: “I agree with @savechildrenuk. I find it incomprehensible that the UK did not vote for a ceasefire. How can you choose to be complicit in the killing of thousands of children?
It’s exactly what I was saying the other day. He diplomatically says UK where I said Britain / England because he knows he’s not allowed to use the E word or the British / English press will call him anti-English. He can say ‘France… the USA… Germany… just not England as that’s ‘anti-English’.
Scotland is one of the 2 UK kingdoms. But it’s not complicit in child genocide. Nope, it’s not the UK being complicit, it’s the government and main opposition party of England. And if someone is saying they’ll vote for these, then they are endorsing that stance. You rubber stamp the whole package when you vote. Even if you say ‘I don’t agree with that policy’ you are still rubber stamping it. No bones about it. I means you are comfortable enough with that policy to not try to stop it by voting for someone else.
So Scots, think about what you are doing if you are considering Con / Lab. You might want to think Lib if you must vote for one of the main unionist parties, as I understand they back a ceasefire.
How many times have we heard news reports that contain the words “right across the UK and Scotland”
Why does the news mention Scotland as a separate entity when they simultaneously insist Scotland is a part of the UK?
How can Scotland be a part of this glorious family of 4 great nations one minute, then we’re all one country the next minute, then equal partners, then subservient, then our views irrelevant because the *British* people say they are?
Confused? of course you are, you’re supposed to be
That’s how bullying works, fear of how the bully is going to behave at any time, leading to depression suppression and lack of expression
Scotland has a Zombie problem, and it’s us, we’re all walking about waiting for somebody to do stuff to us, creating the sure and certain uncertainty that we can do nothing about it
It’s basic school bully behaviour, except it doesn’t end at 3 o’clock, it’s endless
“Wes Streeting says NHS uses winter crisis as excuse to ask for more money”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/10/wes-streeting-nhs-uses-winter-crisis-excuse-more-money-labour
Out torying the tories whilst in oposition what will he be like once a minister.
Its basics people get more illmin winter with flu, noravirus, falls andcdemand on nhs goes up.
He is like braverman on homeless with that comment!
“it’s not the UK being complicit, it’s the government and main opposition party of England. And if someone is saying they’ll vote for these, then they are endorsing that stance.
I’d call “the government” Westminster – but, unless they’re voting in a non-English constituency, what choice do they have? They’ve only got a choice between one of the rainbow-tory candidates or not voting at all.
Maybe the SNP should stand in English constituencies, esp in the north of England, with Plaid in SW and Midlands. After all, English parties stand in ours. Or (here’s an idea) why don’t Alba stand in them, rather than the SNP? More WM seats without any conflict of interest with other indy-leaning candidates.
The Lib Dems have called for a ceasefire I understand. I assume the English Greens have too. You might have an independent too, such as Corbyn.
I know people will go on about ‘But FPTP! Wasted vote!’. I voted SNP for years under FPTP knowing that it was almost guaranteed not to count / be wasted under FPTP. Then one day in 2007, those faithfully voting SNP all those years, even though they were told ‘but that would let the Tories in’, finally succeeded in affecting change in earnest. Imagine we’d not done that, but all voted Labour ‘to stop the Tories’. We’d not be where we are today. I don’t believe in tactical voting unless you actually do rate the party you are voting tactically for, as is the case with many Green voters lending the SNP their FPTP votes.
If it came to it, I would rather spoil my ballot than vote for parties complicit in genocide. That is a vote for ‘none of the above’ and is what you should do if you e.g. find only Lab and Con on the ballot. The more spoilt ballots and lower % shares of the vote they get, the weaker the mandate the two cheeks of the same erse will have. That undermines their claim to have the right to government. 35% of the vote and a majority? That had the public up in arms and the government weak, as it’s majority will likely be slim.
If you vote for them, they’ll just keep on doing what they are doing and you will be complicit in it as a voter.
Well I was writing in a more general context than the case for a cease-fire. I’d say you’re obviously correct in not wanting to support a party that condones genocide. Although I doubt most of their voters would have voted that way if they’d known this was going to happen.
I’m not sure how you got to FPTP. I wasn’t thinking in those terms, so apologies if it came across that way.
What I was getting at is that in some places there’s a Green or Independent, but in many English constituencies there’s only the Big 3. And whatever counting system you use – FPTP, PR, whatever – you can only vote for the parties that are standing.
In an ideal world I’d agree you should spoil your ballot paper, or there should be a None of the Above party and it would under the ‘winner’s’ right to govern. But most of the public don’t have your interest in stats. They don’t know (or don’t care) whether the mandate’s weak or strong. And in many instances they’d be too tired, too demoralised or even too lazy/apathetic to be up in arms. I wish it could be different, but I’m afraid it’s not.
Anyway, I think Paul posted the next thread to stop this one becoming unwieldy, so I’m going to pop over to that one from now.
The most sensible comment thus far.
Easy answer, the SNP have no interest in governing England Wales or Northern Ireland, and just for the sake of argument if they did decide to stand candidates in England the first issue thrown at them would be an attempt to take over the English/British parliament against the wishes of the English/British people who “want devolution to work”
Remembering of course that English politicians are British politicians and Scottish ones are, well Scottish so not really interested in a one nation UK happy land, they only want to steal Scotland away from the rightful owners the British
The propaganda end result being the SNP are not British, therefore nasty people that don’t represent the British people in Scotland
Every media in Britain would dish that up like free soup
Works for me. My brother and his partner life in Wales near Aberystwyth they vote Plaid Cymru. There are many English people in Wales that are now voting for Plaid Cymru rather than Labour.